<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>The Great Hidden Sea Of The Subconscious by NacreousGore</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/30061755">The Great Hidden Sea Of The Subconscious</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/NacreousGore/pseuds/NacreousGore'>NacreousGore</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Burning Despair Does Ache [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Teen Wolf (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Blood and Gore, Blood and Injury, Canon-Typical Violence, Derek-centric, Desperation, Disturbing Themes, Dreams and Nightmares, First Time, Frottage, Getting Together, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, Kink Discovery, Kink Exploration, M/M, Monsters, Omorashi, Pack Dynamics, Pheromones, Scent Marking, Sickness, Slow Burn, Smut, Subspace, Under-negotiated Kink, Werewolf Senses, Werewolves, Wetting, Wolfed Out Sex</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 17:27:15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>57,410</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/30061755</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/NacreousGore/pseuds/NacreousGore</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>After Stiles is hurt in an attack aimed at Derek, the alpha winds a protective guard around him, doused in responsibility and self-blame like gasoline, and his conflicted and growing feelings for Stiles are holding the match.</p><p>But a new threat doesn't give Derek the time to process what that protective guise is really trying to mask.With the alpha struggling to hold onto the scattered members of his pack, what is burning beneath the surface of his mind, and what will come to light?</p><p>In the deep and dark hours of the night, Derek finds that the feelings and answers may be more difficult to face than the monster in the woods.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Burning Despair Does Ache [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2036131</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>88</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Entanglement Synapse Ache</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>set in the same universe about 2 years after the events of Losing Loss Of Battle, deviating from the canon of early 3a, college ages.</p><p>- monster borrowed from Hemlock Grove and adapted to fit Teen Wolf lore.<br/>- title/chapter titles all taken from the Caretaker tracks.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>When the pickup truck had first advanced on the group, barrelling over the curb to park sideways in the gas station lot, Derek knew it was the men who had been trying to catch him for the past week. He also knew when he evaded them by simply ducking around the corner of the building that he was dealing with a group of utterly useless self-taught werewolf hunters. </p><p>Leaning against the wall, Derek listened in on them asking the straggling members of his pack if they had seen or heard of anyone fitting his description. When Scott and Allison had played believably dumb, Derek was figuring they’d be just as easy to evade until they would inevitably give up and move on to some other backwoods town. The truck took off again, and Derek had reemerged to watch it pull out, also watching Stiles ducking off towards the line of trees behind the gas station to take a leak away from the group, dismissing Scott’s suggestion to walk the five feet inside to use the bathroom because <i> have you ever </i>been<i> inside a gas station bathroom?</i> </p><p>It’s when two minutes passes and Stiles doesn’t come back that the suspicion picks up at the back of Derek’s neck. The edge mingled with the line of pressure that the alpha was still struggling with - just how aware he was of his pack members, how in tune his own stress was in response to their absence. Already feeling stretched thin by the distance between the non-present members, Derek’s mind felt pulled out from them by the cycles of the moon, full in less than a week and already beginning to weigh down.</p><p>It’s when two minutes turns into five minutes and Stiles hasn’t returned that Scott’s agitation starts to rise too, and it cements it in Derek’s mind that he’s not coming back. It’s Scott who traces Stiles’ scent in an arching loop back towards the road where it disappears, darkly muttering that <i>someone must have picked him up.</i> The comment is punctuated with Derek’s hearing honing in on the loud firing of truck cylinders from far-off down the dirt road. </p><p>The hunt begins with Derek ordering Scott and Allison back into their car to gather the rest of the pack, and once they’re speeding off in the opposite direction Derek focuses his senses onto the trail.</p><p>It leads him into the woods. </p><p> </p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸</p>
</div><p> </p><p>Derek had been tracking through the woods for almost an hour now, following along the trail that had been left for him. The trail itself was winding down a deer path, but a repeated littering of broken branches and disturbed leaves line the edges of it. Narrow grooves in the soil disrupt the natural layer of sediment and plant matter, and Derek’s eyes fall into these, his body picking up speed to follow it. He could see the cause of it as if it were still playing out before him - the hunters, moving shoulder to shoulder to cut through the path, ensuring that Derek would notice, and additional snapped branches and torn leaves from dragging an increasingly agitated Stiles behind them. </p><p>He found the obvious trail almost offensive at how plainly spelled out it was, and as Derek moved through the trees in an almost silent sprint he began to wrestle with the idea that they <i>weren’t</i> in fact inept, but outright mocking him with their blatant trail of breadcrumbs. </p><p>The line felt hazy in his own mind - what was perceived fact and what was imposed by his own state of mind. His inner anger at being unable to keep his pack in one place, the members of it safe, and his shortcomings as an alpha felt plastered in bold block letters on his back. The rage is far from useless though, and moving through the trees Derek works to turn his gnashing frustration towards the group of hunters instead.</p><p>A brief glimpse at the footprints on the ground had told Derek all he needed to know at first - there were three of them, all average height and over average weight, trying to stay hidden but had been unprepared for the level at which Stiles had struggled. <i>Good on you,</i> Derek thinks in a rush, but something dark is stewing in the pit of his stomach, growing with every new sight of snapped branches and staggered, dragging footsteps in the dirt. </p><p>The thought of the hunters catching Stiles off his guard was bad enough, and knowing that they had plucked him right out from under Derek’s nose was like a kick in the gut. The capture was a red inked underline pointing out the flaws in Derek’s leadership. Stiles was part of his team, and the possessive edge that flanked him inside Derek’s mind was sharpening with every passing minute, fanged and drooling and out for blood. </p><p>Stiles was arguably an asset, but practically defenceless on his own and that initial itch at the back of Derek’s mind that something was going wrong had grown into the cold press of a hand, shoving his skull down to trace the path, gripping at his brain stem and demanding that he think of nothing else but finding Stiles. </p><p>Everything he had picked up from the hunters had pointed towards the group being incompetent. The lack of finesse in their behaviour and their inability to effectively track him down in a town this size backed up Derek’s profile of them. But the idea keeps squirming like a malformed insect through his mind, encouraging him to believe they were doing it on purpose to rile him up, to knock him off balance, and dragging a member of his own pack this deep through the trees was solidifying the concept. </p><p> </p><p>He’s close enough to catch a scent now, though it’s not of the hunters. They were still shrouded by the measures they had taken, but Stiles’ scent is there, reaching out towards Derek through the woods. The smell of blood, traced with fine distress, and around it were the coiling riffs of anxiety that never seemed to really leave him. </p><p>Stiles, who had been caught on purpose to lure him out, to trigger his anger, block out his ability to take preventative measures. Derek knew this just as well as he knew he was running towards a setup, even before he was picking up on Stiles’ voice too, crooked and catching on the trees, shouting <i>“Derek, it’s a trap!”</i> </p><p>Stiles’ voice is bright, a stark outcry through the silence of the forest before a growled command to <i>“shut up, kid”</i> is imposed halfway through his next shout. It’s followed by the sound of a blunt object being introduced to a warm body. </p><p> </p><p>And now, approaching the clearing in which they had set themselves up, Derek can smell the hunters despite their best efforts of staying upwind and coating themselves in what he can now pick out to be mud and topsoil. It’s all overshadowed by the hot press of fear and annoyance radiating from the centre of the clearing, but Derek tries to ignore that for now, circling back around the outskirts to find the perfect entry point. </p><p>He finds it almost immediately. An unguarded area ten metres away from the end of their trail. <i>Amateurs,</i> Derek confirms, cross and heavy through his mind before he’s shifting into something that doesn’t want to categorize their experience and just wants to tear them apart.</p><p> </p><p>The first hunter goes down easy, squealing like a trapped rabbit when Derek claws through his hamstrings, felling him and raising the alarm. The other two predictably turn, pointing their rifles parallel to each other towards the noise. The motion leaves their backs and throats exposed from the side, and Derek is chewing through the second one’s spine before the first one’s lacerated jugular has time to coat the forest floor with blood. </p><p> </p><p>Derek can feel the night explode around him once they’re dead. The air seems fresher, rippling with energy, the sky pulsing through the gaps along the tops of the trees as they sway in a pale dance with the wind. All of it is narrated with the bold tang of blood against his tongue. He wants to cave in to the feeling, but with a snarl he shakes it back instead. The bloodlust drops away from Derek’s body, quickly overcome with the cool flood of relief at seeing Stiles conscious and in one piece. </p><p>“I told them they were being too obvious,” Stiles says in greeting as Derek moves towards the tree he’s been affixed to, chasing the high strung scent. </p><p>“You gave them pointers on how to catch me better?” Derek replies, stepping out from the foliage. Stiles pales at the sight of him - half-shifted and coated in the slick shine of human blood. His reaction to the grotesque sight is replaced in a heartbeat by exhausted relief, though his body hardly moves.</p><p>“I figured if I kept talking I’d be easier to find,” Stiles offers. He’s standing on the very edges of his tiptoes, arms jerked violently behind him to connect to a wired winch system. A thick lasso of steel cable connects him to the high branches above, effectively stringing him up like a bow. <i>Bait,</i> the shadow in Derek’s mind translates. <i>Prey.</i></p><p>“Doesn’t look like they liked that much,” Derek says, frowning at both the sight of him and at the initial string of thoughts inside his head. Stiles’ face is flushed, blood at the corner of his mouth and oozing from a superficial cut across the tail-end of one eyebrow, the eye beneath still swelling. There’s a tightness to his torso too, like he’s been breathing shallowly, unable to take a full breath.  </p><p>“Evidently not,” Stiles says, and the high dagger of stress in his voice has Derek moving around to his back, figuring out his next move. The scent of Stiles’ discomfort is almost asphyxiating, sharp and uneasy in the air, and growing with each passing second as the wire digs deeper with each subtle but strained motion.</p><p>Derek’s eyes race in a malicious line. They trace up the leaks of blood, taking in the swollen skin of Stiles’ wrists. It’s a hungry gaze that feels as if it hardly belongs to him, running up to the jutting plates of Stiles’ shoulder blades. They’re straining out against the restraints. </p><p>Derek can see the pressure as if it’s its own entity, separate from Stiles’ body. Red, bulging, knotted and consuming, and it takes more willpower than he’s comfortable recognizing to not reach out and force his shoulders down just to stop the writhing. Derek can see how that would pan out without actually entertaining it as an option - the wire slicing in deeper, the pained shriek that would be drawn out. <i>Bait, prey.</i> The sight and scent of blood that some dark inner corner of his mind almost wants. <i>Not an option,</i> and Derek steadies himself back inside the present. </p><p>“Hold still,” he says, trying to stamp out how pointless it feels. The strain on Stiles’ body to keep himself stretched onto his toes to appease the wire is visible. A ripple of tension and nerves is churning across his back and the line of his limbs, an unconscious quiver as Derek is gripping the wire from high up on the branch. It creates a handful of slack that Stiles shudders down into. </p><p>The wire cable is as tight as Stiles’ shaking muscles and it tries to bite into Derek’s palm as he lifts it up towards the branches, flashing out his claws to cut through it. A sharp and wavering sound rings out when he slices through, and Stiles stumbles forwards, arms finally released from where they had been twisted up towards the tree. </p><p>They’re still trapped behind his back though, and Stiles lets out a drawn out groan that’s bent with equal parts pain and relieved exhaustion. Derek can feel the sound as clearly as he hears it, like a reverberation running through the wall of his chest. It makes him want to double back and scatter the hunters’ organs through the woods, reclaiming his pack and his place at the head of it. It’s not a helpful thought though, and honing in on Stiles’ breathing - still shallow, but not as tight - Derek works to reform his mind into something less monstrous. </p><p> </p><p>The wire still coiled around Stiles’ arms is made of three sharply braided rings, frayed razor sharp where it’s been severed, and knotted tightly against Stiles’ skin. Derek drops to his knees on the soil trying to get a better angle. Stiles’ hands are stuck together at the thumb joint, fingers pinned together and pointing backwards away from his body. </p><p>“God, fuck, Derek can you please hurry up with that?” Stiles says in one tight exhale, the tremor running through his forearms accentuating the stress in his tone. </p><p>“Yeah, working on it,” Derek mutters back, reaching out with a tentative claw to try to hook around part of the wire. Stiles hisses sharply in response, hands splayed still minus a repeated shake, and after another gasp of pain Derek aborts the attempt to get under the wire. </p><p>As useless as the band of hunters had been with tracking and subduing him, they had certainly mainlined their efforts into attaching Stiles to the winch pulley. The braided wire had been wrapped securely to halfway up his forearms, tight enough to cut off the circulation and he was still bleeding from where it had bitten into the swelling skin. On top, the wire was tied in hair-thin knots along his inner wrist. Any area Derek would have been able to slip a claw under the wire would simply dig it into the flesh where the knots were, and above the swelling the deep blue of Stiles’ veins were jumping out against his skin.</p><p>“I don’t think I can get this off,” Derek says, eyes chasing circles around the river of veins moving beneath the skin under the tied wire.</p><p>“Seriously?” Stiles says back, sounding more pained than before. </p><p>“Not without taking a chunk out of your wrist in the process,” Derek says back. In front of him, Stiles is rolling one shoulder back experimentally to relieve some pressure, but suddenly doubles back to neutral, digging the toes of his shoes into the dirt and rocking sharply back onto his heels again.</p><p>“How big of a chunk we talking?” He asks in a tight voice, fidgeting onto the balls of his feet as Derek stands up again.</p><p>“Try a claw-shaped hole in your radial artery,” Derek deadpans back. He can see it in his mind’s eye, even as he presses on the thought to disperse. The hot splash of bright blood, the gleeful dig of the wire. </p><p>“Oh,” Stiles says, stopping his agitating squirm for a second. “Shit.”</p><p>“Yeah,” Derek agrees. “I can try shaving through some of it from the outside, but those bastards really pinned it tight. You’ll be better off until we can get back to the house. This needs pliers or something.”</p><p><i>“Fuck,”</i> Stiles whines, bouncing on his toes again. “Can you try now? Please?” He adds swiftly, and Derek hesitates, sighing before lowering himself back onto the ground behind him. </p><p>Reevaluating the sight of the wire has Derek grimacing. The agitated tissue is eclipsing the main core of the wire embedded in his skin, bruising dark already, the edges of Stiles’ cuticles turning a deep maroon from the blood and the struggle. </p><p>Derek gingerly touches the skin of his wrists above the wire, trying to twist them to one side to get a better angle, and Stiles yelps above him. Apologizing, Derek releases his faint grip, watching grimly as a thin line of fresh blood trickles down along the swollen underside of Stiles’ index fingers. The smell of it pulses through Derek’s head, lapping at the edges of his concentration.</p><p>“Okay, hold still,” Derek says again, hooking a claw and bringing it to the most visible edge of wire. He’s barely brought the edge of his nail to the wire, dragging it up in a light sawing motion when a sharp and sudden sound escapes Stiles and Derek freezes his movements as he speaks again.</p><p>“Ow, <i>ow,</i> fuck, no, please stop,” Stiles is whimpering a half-second after Derek has already stopped. </p><p>“Yeah, no, we’re not trying that again,” Derek says as he stands up evenly, and Stiles lets out a crushed breath. </p><p>“Come on,” Derek says next, drawing in a fresh breath of air and pointing himself back towards the woods. “Let’s get out of here.” </p><p>“Fuck, okay, um.” There’s a ragged pause as Stiles tries to right his balance, hands still pinned behind him.</p><p>“Can you walk?” Derek asks a beat later, looking Stiles over again. He’s standing oddly, which Derek had attributed to the wire, the stiff angle of his arms, but now there’s a shift to Stiles’ balance, semi-hunched over, thighs pressing in towards each other. </p><p>“Yeah, yeah,” Stiles says, but with the first forward step he’s shifting rapidly back to standing upright, cinching one leg towards the other. “Actually, fuck. No,” he corrects, and aims a distressed look at Derek. “Are you <i>sure</i> you can’t get this thing off me first?” </p><p>“I - ” Derek stops, sighs. “It’s on <i>tight</i>, Stiles. If I nick you you’re going to be bleeding a lot worse than you are now.” </p><p>“Fuck,” Stiles hisses. </p><p>“Half hour and we get to my house, I think I can cut those off with needle-nose pliers,” Derek says. “And you’re going to need to get patched up,” he adds, which has Stiles stamping a foot onto the ground and Derek narrows his eyes.</p><p>“Do you want me to take some of the pain?” Derek offers, sweeping his eyes over Stiles. There’s a visible tick at the corner of his mouth, and he’s rolling up on the balls of his feet again, bouncing rigidly.  </p><p>“That’s not the main issue,” Stiles says between his teeth. </p><p>“What’s the main issue?” Derek asks, suspicion rising when Stiles seems to bite down on what he was going to say next. His own relief at finding Stiles feels overshadowed by the wire, the swollen tissue and thin lacerations winding around the forefront of his mind. Any satisfaction at their reunion had been abruptly discarded into the night, and disposing of the hunters didn’t seem like nearly enough to stop that shadow in his mind from picking out the fine details of Stiles’ posture. Stressed, fidgeting, reminding Derek against his will of a lure on a fishing line.</p><p>“God, fuck, son of a bitch,” Stiles whines, pivoting on his heels next, wrapping one leg to cross fully around the other. “I really have to pee, those guys intercepted me before I had the chance, and I’m fucking dying over here, man,” he says in a pained rush. “Can you try again?” Derek shoots him a dubious look, and Stiles bounces up more violently this time. </p><p>“Please, I’m literally about to burst, can you just try?” Stiles begs, and what starts off as a pang of sympathy in Derek’s mind quickly deteriorates into a clouded blur. He can feel the wolf whittling down the edges of its cage, and Stiles’ pleading tone is chipping at the lock from the outside. The thrill of the chase is still circling the clearing they’re both standing in, along with a disappointed sulk of how it had ended so easily. That shadow in Derek’s mind is recanting the feeling of flesh beneath his teeth, and getting caught up in how the self preserving spark in Stiles’ eyes isn’t letting himself look at the bodies at all. </p><p>Dropping back to his knees to try to engineer the wiring invites another onslaught of senses to overwhelm Derek’s system. The fresh blood from Stiles’ wrists is heady, mixing with the swirls of gore still painted through the clearing, and the fear, the anxious distress is stronger here, now tinted with the almost sweetened notes of embarrassment. It’s impossible for Derek to clear his mind, but he roots through the cocktail of stimulus for the rage at the centre of the night - his pack member that’s been disfigured with hunter’s tools, his responsibility to fix it. </p><p>Derek angles the absolute point of a claw into part of the wire at the base of Stiles’ thumb. The metal is hooked deep, the area greasy with sweat and blood, and the tip bites into the meat around it, slicing Stiles before Derek has a chance to pull away. Stiles cries out as the wire cinches in around the now-bleeding skin and Derek growls under his breath. It’s a shallow groove, almost unnoticeable amongst the rest of the damage, but he can’t find any other method that would yield better results. </p><p>“I’m sorry,” Derek says, taking a step back. The smell of blood is too thick up close - salt, copper and steel - and it’s blending too close to guilt to be palatable.  </p><p>“That actually hurts enough to be a distraction, let’s just go,” Stiles says, his voice unsteady and high up in his throat, and Derek doesn’t need to be told twice. </p><p> </p><p>They barely make it five minutes down the path before Stiles is pausing to pin his legs together to compose himself, moaning <i>“fuck, fuck, fuck,”</i> under his breath. He seems to get himself under some semblance of control, and they start off again. </p><p> </p><p>Another five minutes crawls by, but Stiles’ steps are getting more and more jagged and uneven until Derek starts to actively worry that one misplaced step will have him pitching forwards and severing his hands on impact. </p><p>Derek is about to suggest leaving him to run ahead and grab whatever tools he can find in his house when Stiles is beating him to it, legs stiffening into an abrupt stop before he’s doubling over in a squirming bend.</p><p>“Oh, fuck, I can’t do this,” Stiles says in a horrified whine. <i>Bait!</i> the storm in Derek’s temples starts up. <i>Prey!</i> The noise Stiles makes in his throat is agreeing with it, and Derek’s vision is going fish-eye with the effort it takes to block it all out.</p><p>“What do you want me to do?” Derek asks stiffly, feeling a little bit like a block of ice has been dropped down the back of his neck. The douse of relief at finding Stiles relatively uninjured is long gone, buried beneath the tree he had been winched to. </p><p>“I’m trying to decide if pissing myself or asking you to help me would be worse, except I <i>can’t fucking think right now,”</i> Stiles says in a choked up voice. The words come out in a tightly wound current and they hit Derek like an electric shock. </p><p>“Uh,” Derek says, mind buffering alongside Stiles’. The wolf is chewing through the cage. The forest is on fire with the colours of the night. </p><p>“Right,” Derek says next, clearing his throat. “Preemptively, we’re never speaking of this again,” he adds, taking a sidestep towards where Stiles is still squirming in a losing rhythm, hips twisting in a tense circle that’s so high in discomfort that Derek is surprised he hasn’t spiralled himself into the ground. Almost as surprised that he himself hasn’t fully shifted and torn off through the trees to tear something else to pieces.</p><p>“Yeah, that’s a given,” Stiles manages thinly as Derek approaches him, pausing for a second to settle on an angle. There’s a gouge of silence in which Derek is hyperaware of Stiles’ racing pulse, the sweat collecting on the arch of his neck, and then he’s reaching around him from the back to unbutton his jeans, jerking them down as he peels back the material underneath along with it. There’s the sound of Stiles’ sharp inhale and then he’s dropping to his knees, hinging at the waist until he’s almost at a ninety degree angle to the ground and Derek is turning away from the sight of him, trying in vain to focus on literally anything else. Pressing his eyes closed and thinking of the crunch the hunter’s vertebrae had made beneath his jaw, the hot spray of life blood against his claws, Derek stands rigidly, trying to flatten out the harsh sound behind him, not unlike a bursting water line.  </p><p>A slight eternity passes before Stiles is wrestling himself back onto his feet with a wince as the jolt grapples with the wiring. There’s a beat of awkward hesitation before he’s taking an uncertain backwards step towards Derek, still facing the opposite direction.  </p><p>“Um. Could you…?” Stiles trails off, and Derek tries not to think of the technicalities he’s trying to dance around and edges back over to reposition Stiles’ clothes.</p><p>“Thanks,” Stiles says in a far-off and hollow voice once he’s covered again. Derek makes a noncommittal sound that doesn’t quite leave the back of his throat, and Stiles won’t look him in the eye. </p><p>Stiles continues to not look at him as they trace the path back towards Hale house, Derek muttering something about the rest of the pack being on their way, and Stiles mutely follows him. Derek imagines it’s the self preserving instinct kicking back in, and he silently fights with that wolf-side that’s perking up at the now docile Stiles that’s shadowing him through the trees. </p><p>Sharp notes of stress are still rippling out towards Derek, but Stiles stays uncharacteristically quiet for the time it takes them to walk back out of the woods. </p><p> </p><p>They’re approaching Hale house when Derek’s senses lock in on the sound of something approaching their position. It’s direct, intentional movement - light footsteps, tendons snapping - and a moment later Isaac is appearing from the woods in front of them. Again, a muted roll of relief passes over Derek, though Stiles hardly reacts to the sight of him. <i>Shock,</i> Derek notes with a grimace. It’s not full out, but traces of grey are beginning to cloud into Stiles’ demeanour, and one quick look over of his state has Isaac insisting they go straight to Deaton.</p><p>Allison and Scott redirect to swing back and pick them up. Wrangling Stiles into the car takes some rearranging, with Allison boxing herself against the steering wheel to fit Isaac into the backseat, Stiles being wedged in sideways, his front crushed against Scott who locks around him like a seatbelt. In the passenger seat, Derek tries in vain to lower the tense strain of his own muscles, still fuming beneath his skin, and he’s entirely aware of the caution and alarm that’s rising from everyone else in the cramped car. </p><p>“This is cozy,” Stiles says in a muffled voice, and the sarcastic quip does the opposite of the desired effect to Derek’s mind. The tension ripples out from him further, and Allison seems to sense it, accelerating faster past the next turn. Derek can sense the pain that’s radiating from the backseat in damp pulses, hating that it’s still being chased with Stiles’ attempt to diffuse the atmosphere like it’s his job to. His voice had come out a bit too strained to feel natural, and it’s followed by the sound of uncomfortable shifting on the seats. Scott meets it before Derek has the chance to, flattening his palm against Stiles’ upper arm, his eyes half-lidded and golden in the rearview mirror as the pain seeps into him. </p><p> </p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸</p>
</div><p> </p><p>“Oh my god,” Allison breathes once they’re under the light in Deaton’s entranceway.</p><p>The overhead bulbs are doing cruel things to Stiles’ arms. The skin beneath the wires is an angry and mottled red, his fingers going purple and stained with combating layers of fresh and drying blood.</p><p>“That bad?” Stiles asks, and there’s a heavy lilt to his voice that Derek hones in on. The adrenaline abandoning him fully now, and Derek nudges Scott forward through the doors in time for him to fall in to step beside Stiles. Scott reaches out to steady his waist when the next step has him faltering to the side.</p><p>“Those hunters did <i>this</i> to you?” Scott says, fury building on his face when Stiles nods mutely, and Derek can see the wolf in him too, burning to jump out. “I’ll kill them,” Scott adds on, and Stiles barely reacts. Derek catches the anger, the jump of the lie that lays uneasily on Scott. </p><p>“Derek beat you to it,” Stiles says, voice still coming out rather distantly. Scott’s threats and curses for the dead men in the woods are brushed aside when Deaton ushers them all through the clinic to the backroom. </p><p>The surgery room is bright and sterile, gauze and a large bottle of antiseptic set up alongside a shining metal tray of what looks like dental tools, and Deaton wastes no time with them. He makes fast but steady work of snipping through the wired knots, and Derek catches every flinch that Stiles makes, grits them between his teeth. Stiles keeps quiet through it all, either unwilling or unable to reply to Scott’s attempts to distract him. Instead he watches the ceiling with a disrupted stare as Deaton unravels the metal from the swollen tissue of his arms.</p><p>“Nasty,” Deaton says with a neutral amount of sympathy, and Derek watches Stiles’ muscles lurch beneath his skin as he swathes the cuts with antiseptic.</p><p>“These two deeper edges need a few stitches, but the rest will heal up fine,” Deaton says after a few minutes of working silently. “You’re lucky no one tried to cut them off before you got here.” </p><p>“Lucky,” Stiles echoes back, and Derek hears it with a deep root of guilt extending through his torso.</p><p>“Hang on, I’ll give you some anesthetic first,” Deaton says, and when he comes back to the table it’s with a hypodermic needle. There’s a swift rush of change to Stiles’ demeanour then, which Derek directs to instantly. It’s visible too, not just the scent of fresh distress - a sudden upturn in his pulse, a wild panic in his eyes that he seems to bite down on, fighting to banish but he doesn’t object aloud.</p><p>“Skip it,” Derek says, crossing the distance to the table. He slithers a hand in to press to Stiles’ skin, his gaze catching the way Stiles’ eyes sink closed at the contact as he lets out a wavering breath. A sensation grips into Derek. It’s a weighted ache, exploding at the joints and dissolving into sharp arrows of pain that sink into his own veins. It’s worse than he had anticipated, and he acknowledges the fury rising through his mind while his body soaks up the wreckage. It’s accompanied by a pang of sympathy, twisting from low inside his chest cavity.</p><p>The sharp tugging of the thread feels like something he’s earned, something well deserved, and when he wraps both hands around the pain the pain grips him back, greedy to be consumed. Stiles doesn’t protest as it’s stolen from him, and Deaton works with a steady hand, putting a sliver of Derek’s mind to rest. </p><p>There’s movement at the door of the surgery room, pulling Derek’s eyes off towards it. Isaac - starting to pace around the edges of the room, and Derek drags his focus away from Stiles to pin to him instead. He recognizes the stance in the beta, desperately searching for purpose, the restless motion in his limbs an attempt to hold himself back. </p><p>“Isaac,” Derek starts, and the beta’s eyes are on him, the pacing cut down into a poised and ready stance in an instant. “Come back to the woods with me when this is done,” he continues and Isaac brightens, latching on to the opportunity.</p><p>“Have to get rid of the bodies,” Derek says, and noting it drags the image of it back into his mind. The fallen point of limbs, the arc of blood against the leaves, black beneath the night.</p><p>“I can do it now,” Isaac says quickly, voice low like they’re conspiring, and when Derek hesitates he’s adding, “please, let me do it.” He’s already out the door, eyes pinned to Derek and begging for an exit. Still eager to carve himself a position in the pack, and again Derek can feel the holes in his leadership. <i>There’s no security here,</i> the thought bubbles up and it sticks like grease. <i>No safety.</i> He nods to Isaac curtly and the beta vanishes through the door.</p><p>Deaton carries on in a comfortable silence, and Derek is grateful for it. Against the counters Allison and Scott idle with their heads together, and Derek shuts out the soft sound of their whispered conversation. He tunes in to Stiles instead. His breathing has adjusted back to steady now, but Derek can sense more than the usual amount of faint exhaustion extending from his frame in waves. Derek can’t do anything for it, his veins already ripe with stinging pain, and when Deaton ties off the last stitch and bandages his work, Derek is again grateful for it. The hour feels late, crushingly close to midnight when he disconnects his hands to move back, and Stiles slides unsteadily off the exam table and onto his feet. </p><p>Deaton walks them back out, saying something about pharmacies and anti-inflammatories. Derek holds back at the rear, watching the dark pulse fade out against his veins before moving to follow them. </p><p> </p><p>“Come on,” Scott is saying from the front of the clinic. “We’ll take you home.” Allison moves to the door, and Derek watches from a few steps behind, standing in between the folding door of mountain ash. Stiles nods to Scott, but turns back towards Derek, and Derek stares at him, guarded by the shadows of the entrance. Stiles just winds his arms together at his front, cradling his swollen but now bandaged wrists, and shifts his weight impatiently like he wants to say something.</p><p>“Thanks,” is what he ends up saying after another stretched out bridge of silence. </p><p>“Don’t mention it,” Derek says back, a little startled by the subdued expression Stiles is facing him with. His words come out like a flat command, and the emotionless pitch of it is a steel mask from what his mind had responded with. <i>It’s my fault you were caught at all. It’s all been my fault.</i> </p><p>More silence, this time almost painful around the edges. </p><p> </p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸</p>
</div><p> </p><p>Sleep doesn’t let him in until the first peaks of sunlight are crowning through the clouds. It’s a heavy and cloying kind of sleep, and Erica is waiting for him when he descends into it. She comes to him the way she always does, with her scent so muted he can barely find it through the far-off columns of his mind. She’s stiff in his arms, her face sunken in. And just as present is the absence of everything she had ever brought to his mind. Warmth, life, that spark of amber trouble in her eyes, her cutting tongue. It’s all swept out into that grey fog that the red swarm of rage inside of his chest can’t claw its way out of. </p><p> </p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p> ⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸</p>
</div><p> </p><p>When Derek wakes it’s inching towards ten am, and his phone battery is dead. Still half asleep, he plugs it into the nearest socket. There’s a pause, a flashing icon, then it’s chirping back to life, projecting several missed calls from Isaac, mailbox full, and the last recorded voicemail douses Derek’s mind into <i>wide awake</i> as soon as he hears it. </p><p>
  <i>“I found the trail, but the bodies were gone. Someone else already found them.”</i>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Camaraderie At Arms Length</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Isaac is pacing uneasily through the trees when Derek finds him. The beta is rubbing his palms up the lengths of his arms as he stalks back and forth, coming to a standstill when he catches sight of Derek. </p><p>“Hey,” Isaac says, and his eyes leave Derek to trace in a tight scan of the woods surrounding them. Derek does the same, his eyes catching on the severed fray of the wire winch, shining bright and sharp in the afternoon sun. </p><p>“I tracked back here last night,” Isaac starts, following Derek’s steps into the centre of the clearing. “There were three of them, right?” Derek makes a confirming sound, eyes falling to the ground, outlining the empty holes where the bodies had been. Blood, dried almost black in tackiness sticks to the fallen leaves, the puckered scatter of soil. </p><p>“How long did it take you to get here?” Derek asks sharply, swinging back to face Isaac. There’s a heavy cloud hanging over his mind. It’s soaked full of paranoia, a prickle at the back of his neck saying <i>something’s wrong,</i> and Isaac’s expression reflects it back wordlessly. </p><p>“Just under two hours,” Isaac replies. “Took me longer to trace some of the trails around it, but I didn’t follow any of them that far.”</p><p>“‘Some of the trails’?” Derek asks. “What do you mean?” Isaac shifts uncomfortably, pointing himself in one direction, slanting away from one of the blood patches.</p><p>“I mean whoever came for the bodies, I think they took each one somewhere different. Scents lead off all throughout the woods,” Isaac says, and Derek shifts where he’s standing, scenting the air around the clearing. Sure enough, three trails wind off through the trees from different angles, bleeding out into the other scents of the forest. </p><p>“Didn’t find any of them?” Derek asks, and Isaac pauses, shakes his head. There’s a look in his eyes like he’s almost reproachful, wary to tell him that he’d failed his task, but Derek merely nods once, disregarding it.</p><p>“There was another scent on the trails,” Isaac says next. “I didn’t recognize it.”</p><p>“Other hunters?” Derek suggests. </p><p>“I don’t know,” Isaac says. “Are there more in town that you know about?”</p><p>“Just the guys from last night. They may have had reinforcements,” Derek answers. “If it wasn’t hunters, I don’t know who else would have any reason to be out here. Cops, but that late?” He pauses, gives Isaac’s posture a once over. He’s favouring one side, like he’s ready to leap into action. </p><p>“Something seems off,” Derek adds and Isaac shifts to the other side.  </p><p>“If law enforcement had found it, they’d have to have been tipped off, wouldn’t they?” Isaac asks as Derek crouches down, looking at the spilled blood, the splashes on the plants on the forest floor. </p><p>“Finding them this fast, in this area? Probably,” Derek admits, and frowns at the prospect. Someone finding the bodies that fresh implied someone was keeping tabs - on either him or the hunters. Isaac’s next words match his thoughts. </p><p>“Does that mean someone was following you?” </p><p>“Maybe,” Derek says, but it feels wrong to say. In his mind he can still feel the sharp focus of his senses from the night before, how set he was on his trail, the silence of the woods around them on their route out. </p><p>“But this would be all roped off if it was the cops,” Isaac says next. He drops it like a statement, but Derek can feel his eyes crawling over to him, silently questioning. </p><p>“Yeah,” Derek says, feeling the tug of his brows furrowing together. The ground in the clearing was heavily marred with prints. A mess of the hunter’s boots, the narrow grooves where they had dragged Stiles through. He can see his own contribution - heavy, springing steps that carved into the earth and it all begins to blur together nonsensically in his vision. </p><p>“So they brought Stiles in from this way, from the road,” Isaac says, musing like he’s trying to lay his thoughts out in front of him. </p><p>“And you guys went back this way,” Isaac continues, nodding his head towards the path,  the one pointing a line back to Hale house. </p><p>“Right,” Derek says, moving towards that line now. He can see the trail easily - his footprints, Stiles’ next to them. He can also see the uneven stance Stiles had been holding, unable to walk correctly and the stunted marks on the ground recite it back to him. </p><p>Derek begins unconsciously retracing their path from the night, and a few paces further up his mind clouds over with the stale and acrid scent on the soil.</p><p>He can feel the same sharpened fog that had taken over his state the night before. The taste of blood in the dark. How relief had felt shattered, buried by the shape Stiles had paced into the dirt, bound and desperate. </p><p> </p><p>“Maybe the Sheriff’s office knows something we don’t,” Isaac says from just behind him, and Derek flinches, then glances at him with a brief nod. Isaac doesn’t say anything about the scent bored into the soil and Derek doesn’t either, just fires off a text to Stiles’ phone; a hurried request for information. The situation suddenly feels more intense, red and glaring from in between the trees. </p><p>From within that glare Derek can feel a pressure closing in at him from all sides. The requirement to fix things, to dig out the answers and restore order.</p><p>“Pick up one of the trails,” he says to Isaac next. The beta goes rigid with compliance, a ready bolt in his spine holding him taut. “Follow it as far as you can, see if you can find anything else. I’ll do the same.” Isaac nods quickly before spinning and vanishing back into the trees. </p><p>Derek wills the feeling he has in his wake to be pride, to be approval at Isaac’s eagerness to prove himself, to take orders and yield results, but the pride doesn’t come. What washes over Derek instead is a slow wave of failure, uneasiness and discontent.</p><p>What he sees in Isaac’s call to action is desperation to hold his spot in a frayed pack. Falling into place behind someone with more anger than leadership, because that was all he knew how to follow. Isaac stretching himself to fill the holes that Boyd and Erica had left, but that hurts to think about, pulls like a wet suction inside his gut and Derek tears it out, forcing himself into focus. </p><p> </p><p>The trail he chooses makes no sense to him. It winds and drags and caves back in on itself, following no path or rhythm he can find as he follows it in turn. He chases the strange shape of it through the silence of the trees as a paranoid feeling picks up and begins to chase him too. It’s the growing feel of eyes on his back, of birds acting as spies in the trees, cameras hidden in stumps and eventually Derek finds that the trail is winding him back towards the clearing where he had taken down the hunters. The severed line of wire dangling from the centre tree seems to grin at him, sharp and shining. </p><p>There’s nothing waiting to be found in the clearing the second time around. Just drying blood, so many tracks, and when Derek checks his phone for messages it pings up empty too. </p><p>Isaac’s scent is there, needling out the opposite way, and further up, pointing in the direction to Hale house Derek can sense the fading but still bright scent of fear and pain, blood and metal.</p><p> </p><p>It’s with Stiles’ scent fresh and gripping at the forefront of his mind that he tears off through the woods, headed for the town.</p><p> </p><p> </p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸</p>
</div><p> </p><p> </p><p>There’s still no reply on his phone when Derek approaches the house, but Stiles’ car sits in the driveway and there’s a faint glow of lights from inside despite the orange heat of the late afternoon sky.</p><p>Knocking on the front door seems strangely formal. It feels like second nature to trace along the perimeter, to slip in through one of the side windows but the nagging suggestion that he’s being tailed nips sharp teeth at the back of his neck and Derek catches himself looking over his shoulder as he waits uneasily on the doorstep. </p><p>He can hear the shuffle of movement from inside the house before Stiles’ figure appears, warped by the blur of the glass. Next comes the snap of a latch unlocking and the door swings open after a clumsy hesitation. </p><p>“Finally learned about doors, huh?” Stiles says, taking a faltering step backwards to nod Derek inside. As Derek crosses the threshold he can see the awkward half-grip Stiles has on the doorknob, like he’s unable to convince his fingers to take proper hold of it. </p><p>The scent of fear and acidity that had followed Derek out of the woods is stale on Stiles’ frame now, overshadowed by slept-in sweat and the blend of everything inside the house. All of it is topped with the hazy aura of discomfort that surrounds Stiles like a swarm of cotton, and Derek frowns at it, following him back to the dining room table before noticing a beat too late that he hasn’t said anything yet. </p><p>“I texted you,” Derek says to make up for his initial silence. </p><p>“Oh,” Stiles says, and Derek follows the direction of his gaze to the table. College textbooks and documents are stacked and scattered across its surface, and Stiles shifts some pages around, revealing his phone buried underneath, flashing with missed messages. </p><p>“Sorry, what did you need?” He asks, sinking back into the chair on the opposite side of the table. </p><p>“The hunters’ bodies were taken from the woods last night,” Derek says, and Stiles looks at him sharply, picking a pen off the table to tap in an arrhythmic beat against the spine of a textbook. </p><p>“I don’t think it was the cops, but maybe they know something about hunters in that area, or they’ve been reported missing, or anything else,” Derek continues. Stiles stops tapping when Derek stops speaking, grimacing slightly like the short-lived repetitive motion has churned up fresh pain.</p><p>“Are you alright?” Derek asks carefully when Stiles doesn’t respond. There’s a tight aura of apprehension outlining him, and he sighs roughly at the question. </p><p>“Yeah, fine,” he mutters. “Just a pile of work to get through and those meds they gave me are fucking over my regular prescription.” There’s a lull in which Derek can see what he means - Stiles’ eyes look clouded under the fluorescent lighting, an agitated tick in his shoulder, the uncomfortable jut of the pen held in the claw-like posture of his right hand.  </p><p>“Can’t concentrate on anything,” Stiles adds, shaking his head and dropping the pen to the floor as Derek watches. He can’t tell if it was an act of frustration or simply a coordination failure from the strained tendons. </p><p>“Right,” Derek says, a bit delayed. “Sorry.”</p><p>“What did you want again?” Stiles asks, suddenly blinking rapidly like he’s just properly registered Derek’s presence in his house.</p><p>“To see if you knew anything about what law enforcement is saying about those hunters in the woods,” Derek recites, and Stiles nods belatedly.</p><p>“Right. Uh, my dad’s off at some conference this weekend. I can tap into the police lines and figure it out, though,” he says, snapping into slightly slogged down action. </p><p>“Alright. I don’t think cops are the ones who took the bodies anyway. It’s not a crime scene, they’re just...gone,” Derek says. It feels like a weak statement, like admitting he doesn’t know what’s going on reflects back on him directly, but the haze in Stiles’ eyes doesn’t seem to pick up on him at all. </p><p>An alarm beeps on Stiles’ phone and he groans at the noise. Derek watches as he stiffly thumbs the notification off and picks a prescription bottle out of the clutter on the table. Stiles grapples with the bottle for a moment, swearing under his breath at it as his hands seem unwilling to cooperate, too swollen to twist the cap off with any deftness.</p><p>“Do you want help?” Derek asks and Stiles huffs at him, buckling down on the bottle with irritation. Another moment passes before it’s popping open with a hollow <i>click</i> and Stiles shakes out a tablet to swallow gracelessly.</p><p>“Why were those hunters after you?” Stiles asks next, pulling his eyes away from the books piled around him to reach Derek unsteadily. </p><p>“That’s just what hunters do,” Derek says, and Stiles looks at him with a mild frown.</p><p>“You alright?” Derek asks next, eyes moving in a careful wash over the glazed over quality in Stiles’ eyes, the uncomfortable hold of his posture. </p><p>“Yeah, fine,” Stiles says. “That’ll kick in in a few minutes,” he adds, dropping the medication bottle back onto the table without any finesse. </p><p>“Pain?” Derek asks, and Stiles nods, blinking unclearly and shifting his back to rest against the chair. </p><p>“Anti-inflammatory too,” he says. Derek looks at him for a moment. He’s about to say <i>that’s not what I meant</i> when Stiles is shifting uncomfortably again, like the act of holding himself in a seated position is hurting, with no leverage from his arms to lessen the pressure.</p><p>“Don’t rush. It’s nice to have the one up on things, but I don’t think they’re involved yet,” Derek says. He’s suddenly eager to be out the door again, the weight of being the cause of Stiles’ injuries and also the source of interruption barking at him from the sidelines. </p><p>“But they will be, if three people are reported missing, and if they’ve been asking around that’ll connect you to the disappearance,” Stiles says, rambling out a slough of Derek’s own thoughts. Stiles punctuates the sentence with pawing through the loose papers on the table, then winces as the motion drags through his forearms. He sighs again, shutting his eyes like he’s trying to block out the mess, the rest of the room. The books and pages inhabit such a state of disarray that Derek wonders how he’s gotten anything done, if he has at all. </p><p>The next moment has Derek moving towards him without really thinking about it, and when Stiles’ eyes part open again he looks unbothered by Derek’s advance, the line of his vision milky and far-off. He doesn’t startle when Derek brings a hand to his face either, just blinks blearily as Derek holds his palm against the bruise discolouring his cheekbone. </p><p>“Sorry you got hurt,” Derek says. It feels useless to say, an uncomfortable stance in his words. The delicacies of human healing feel fragile to him, held at a distance with a visceral disconnection, and a short flare of anger at the bodies in the woods stems out from his core. </p><p>“Comes with the territory,” Stiles says, and there’s a heavy quality entering his voice, thick like fatigue. “Got werewolves as my best friend and...” he rolls his head to one side, still seeking some altered position he can’t seem to settle into. “And whatever you are,” he finishes with an uncomfortable sigh. </p><p>Derek doesn’t respond, just pulls his hand down and slips it around Stiles’ upper arm instead. A flood of pale pain drags into his veins with the touch and Stiles makes a sound beneath him. It’s hushed, like cracked relief that he bites down on before it releases.</p><p>Derek stays like that for a moment, drawing the dark sensation into his skin. The air enveloping Stiles in the room feels muddy, the cloudiness of pain and medication dampening his demeanour. It’s not until Stiles is shifting again, this time to look up at him that Derek snaps himself out of how he’s standing so still and silent. </p><p>“Text me if you find out anything,” Derek says, breaking for the door and Stiles nods, somewhat delayed. Derek’s gone in the next second, diving into the rich fold of outside air.</p><p> </p><p> </p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸</p>
</div><p> </p><p> </p><p>Isaac is still in the woods when Derek retraces to his path.</p><p>“Didn’t find the bodies,” Isaac says in greeting. “But I found their truck.”</p><p> </p><p>The truck is sitting crookedly on the shoulder of the dirt road, nose pointed at the woods in the direction the hunters had dragged Stiles into the trees. It’s a bulky, conspicuous vehicle, the paint job dented and spotted with rust and dark spatters of dried mud. </p><p> </p><p>The musty scent of the hunters floods Derek’s systems as he pulls the door open. It’s strong; three men travelling in close quarters for who knows how long, avoiding the public eye and forgoing standard hygiene. Derek again marvels at their stupidity - at how they thought they could have gone undetected, taking down an alpha without experience.</p><p>He doesn’t hold any room for sympathy for them, not when Stiles’ scent is stitched into the lining of the back of the truck. It’s softer than the thick air the hunters had left behind. The familiar notes are entwined with the sharp blend of fear and discomfort that clings to Derek’s palette, and he runs the edges of his fingers across the upholstery as Isaac pulls open the driver’s side door. </p><p>Derek thumbs over a spot of blood on the floor of the backseat while Isaac paws through the refuse littering the driver’s side. There’s receipts and a few wrinkled articles of clothing strewn about, along with a box of shells and countless crumpled bits of garbage. Unimpressed, Isaac moves to rummaging through the chair pockets, finally shuffling a book out from the glove compartment. </p><p>“Looks like they were profiling you,” Isaac says next, skimming over the dogeared page. He frowns then, thumbing over the bottom of the page. “Actually, profiling someone who’s not you,” he adds, extending the book to Derek in offering. “Unless you haven’t been telling us about your extracurriculars.”  </p><p>Taking the logbook from Isaac’s hand, Derek scans the page. There’s no mention of his name or any of his known addresses or connections, but the simple profile jotted across the top fits him well enough. </p><p><i>Born werewolf, alpha, no pack</i> and beside that in the margin: <i>dead? banished?</i></p><p><i>Hair: dark, Eyes: light, Height: ~6ft </i> </p><p>It’s the bottom of the page that deviates. A list of dates and locations in neighbouring towns, a detailed scrawl of bodies found, both human and animal - obvious slayings that news reports had covered as animal attacks. </p><p>Scrawled across the last line, a hastily written note reads <i>highly volatile, unstable.</i></p><p> </p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸</p>
</div><p> </p><p> </p><p>There’s something in the air the next morning, a blue matte pressure promising rain, a licking undercurrent that has Derek scanning the horizon on his way out of the loft. Pulling up the weather app on his phone confirms the tingle in his senses - thunderstorms, a high wind warning. There’s a text waiting from Scott too, clarifying their plans to meet up the night of the full moon.</p><p>As Derek makes his way to track through the woods the clouds are already rolling in. </p><p> </p><p>Scott is waiting for him by the entrance to the preserve trails. He’s not on high alert, looks somewhat ruffled and relaxed, and Derek can smell the cause on him, potent and easy. A cloud of sex hangs heavy around him, metal and liquorice, a satin smear of gloss at the corner of his mouth. </p><p>Derek glances around the wooded area, looking for Allison’s car. He can’t see it, but can’t imagine it’s far off either. She’s almost as present as Scott is before him, her scent so carefully wrapped around his form. It feels like a challenge, and it feels like something so wildly preposterous and insecure to dwell on. But Derek can’t quite form her image in his mind without seeing her father, his father in turn, without smelling gunpowder. He can see it as if from above - his own rigid distance, Scott’s reaction to it, and which side Derek knows he would choose if he were asked to. </p><p> </p><p>“Tuesday night?” Scott says as he approaches. His tone is curt but not unpleasant. </p><p>“Come by the loft,” Derek says. He keeps his tone easy, a suggestion Scott could refuse. “You, me, and Isaac. I’d like to track that area in the woods again. Maybe get a lock on that other scent Isaac found.” </p><p>“Sounds great. Real team building exercises,” Scott says. It’s friendly but sarcastic, and Derek doesn’t object to it.  </p><p>“What do you have going on today?” He asks instead, just to see if Scott would lie to him. Scott tells the truth with silent motion instead, his eyes moving in an unconscious slide towards the bend in the road, the same direction that Derek can smell car exhaust.</p><p>“Was going to check on Stiles,” Scott is saying in omission. “He’s not answering his phone.” </p><p>“I can do that,” Derek says back. “He’s looking into the police line for me anyway.” It’s a soft reminder that Derek is involved in things, plucking at the same strings Scott has aligned behind him, but Scott doesn’t seem to read it the same way. He just smiles easily, says thanks, and in the following moments as he walks the path back into town, Derek finds the air between them to be stable, sweet with balance. </p><p> </p><p>The feeling doesn’t last. Like the weather, the tides, it comes and goes in waves. </p><p> </p><p>By the time he’s back on paved streets, picking between neighbourhood signs, Derek’s state of mind feels enslaved by the weight of both the moon and the approaching storm, both invisible and impossible to ignore.</p><p>The quiet and demanding call of the full moon has him on edge, hypersensitive, vigilance spun up to one hundred, and approaching the side of Stiles’ house Derek is hit with the deep rooting scent of pain.</p><p> </p><p>Letting instinct loosen its grip over his psyche Derek shifts to leap up to the windowsill. </p><p>Stiles, propped up against his headboard, unbloodied and in one piece, startles violently at the intrusion.  </p><p><i>“Jesus Christ - Derek!”</i> Stiles explodes, sputtering as he knocks the stack of books at his feet onto the floor with a dull crash. </p><p>“Sorry,” Derek says as the fangs sheath back bluntly. “I could sense pain, I thought something had happened,” he adds, slipping his other leg over the sill and dropping into the room.</p><p>“Oh yeah?” Stiles says, “can you sense me having a heart attack now too?” At the words, dry and grating out, Derek automatically hones in on his pulse. It’s higher than his usual - high to begin with - and there’s another skipping beat as Stiles kicks a paperback book in Derek’s general vicinity. </p><p>“Moon’s putting your lot on edge, huh,” Stiles says after another beat, and it sounds to Derek like wary forgiveness. </p><p>“Yeah,” Derek agrees almost apologetically. </p><p>“You alright?” Derek asks next with a slight frown. “You still smell like...” Stiles shoots him a glance that’s guarded with something self conscious and Derek tapers off, looking for the translation for how his senses are blown out by the moon, how pain smells almost enticing, ripe and unignorable.</p><p>“That still hurts?” He settles on instead, taking in the wrappings covering Stiles from the base of his hands up to his elbows. </p><p>“A bit,” Stiles admits after a pause. “But those painkillers don’t mix well with my Adderall. Didn’t get anything done yesterday, and I’ve got this paper due in another day, so...” Stiles shrugs off the end of the sentence, nodding vaguely at the laptop he has propped at his side. </p><p>Barging in from the night outside to distract him further Derek can feel the faint brewing of guilt at the back of his throat. He clears it roughly, intending to ask Stiles if he had found out anything from the police line. </p><p>“Here, let me,” is what he says instead, and closes in on the side of Stiles’ bed. Reaching down, Derek wraps his fingers around the tops of Stiles’ hands, which twitch slightly under the unexpected pressure. </p><p>“Oh,” Stiles says, going still under the weight, and Derek feels the edge of pain begin to soak out from Stiles’ skin and into his own. It’s low, hot and dragging and Derek grimaces as it drips into his veins. </p><p>Derek can feel the path it’s taking through Stiles’ body to get to his own - it courses down from both arms with a fluid pressure at the core of it - spreading from his back and shoulders too, Derek imagines, and Stiles’ posture sags down against his headrest. </p><p>“That better?” Derek asks after a minute.</p><p>“Yeah,” Stiles answers, and there’s a blanket of relief in his tone that makes the fangs itch to drop back through Derek’s mouth. “Yeah, that’s - that’s really - ” He doesn’t finish the thought, just sighs and lets his eyes slide closed for a moment. Above him, Derek stays quiet like he’s just caught Stiles in a lie. He has, he supposes. The radiating pain into his blood is more than <i>‘a bit’</i> and even as he releases his grip Derek can feel the faltering ache of it trying to hold him back. </p><p>“You look exhausted,” Derek says once Stiles’ eyes part open again. The dark of his irises accompany the dark bruise around the right side, the light flush of his skin beneath. </p><p>“Always nice to hear,” Stiles quips back. Derek snorts. Inconsiderate as it was for him to comment on, Stiles does look exhausted. Looks sore and disheveled too, with tussled hair and puffiness from the faint swelling on his face making him look younger, the tired lines around his eyes playing opposite. </p><p>“Scott said you’re not answering his calls,” Derek says next in lieu of another unwelcome observation. </p><p>“Shit, yeah,” Stiles says, sounding guilty. “Texting is a bitch right now, I haven’t been on my phone much. I called the station though, they don’t know anything about hunters in that area. I was going to set the police scanner up but I didn’t actually get around to it,” he continues, and there’s an apologetic slink in his tone that Derek brushes off easily. He can still see the fog in Stiles’ eyes from the day before, the heavy hang of his body. </p><p>“Actually, could you give me a hand?” Stiles says before Derek has the chance to say anything. He’s not sure what it was he was going to try to say. </p><p>“Sure.” </p><p>“Thanks,” Stiles says, sweeping his legs off the edge of the bed and making to stand up. Derek doesn’t miss the full body wince that comes with the movement. “I put the scanner in the closet but it’s kind of buried.” He crosses the room stiffly, Derek following.</p><p>“It’s that box there,” Stiles says, lifting his arm to point, but the motion only extends partway up before he’s flinching and dropping it back to his side. Derek is moving towards the box on the top shelf but he hesitates at the motion, turning back towards Stiles and reaching out carefully. </p><p>“Hold still,” Derek says under his breath and Stiles complies, freezing in place as Derek slides his hand under Stiles’ shirt to flatten his palm to the side of his torso. Just as he had suspected, a flaring ache is moving through the wall of flesh and muscle, traipsing up from Stiles’ obliques and greedily swarming into Derek’s veins. </p><p>“They really fucked you up,” Derek says, the haunted presence of the moon almost marvelling at the sensation. He can feel the wolf inside his head growling, aghast at how slow human healing worked. The feeling that follows next is something that’s too violent to feel protective, something that wants to cut the pain out from Stiles’ body. <i>Volatile,</i> his mind offers up, baring its teeth. </p><p>“It’s not that bad,” Stiles says, a lie that Derek can see on his expression as well as feel leeching into his own skin. </p><p>“If it’s bad enough that you can’t reach a shelf, then maybe you should be taking your meds,” Derek retorts before dropping his palm from Stiles’ skin, reaching out and fishing the box down and silencing the wolf in his skull. </p><p>He leaves it at that, leaving the house too and placates Scott with a summarizing text. Outside the wind is starting to pick up. It bites cold and cleansing against Derek’s face.</p><p> </p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸</p>
</div><p> </p><p> </p><p>The moon drawing closer paints Derek’s rest with uneasiness, and he finds himself waking earlier than any civil time. The sun is still hiding below the line of the horizon, the wind howling and the ghosts moving through his dreams are unwilling to be banished even as Derek rises.</p><p>He finds himself walking back to the clearing in the woods as the day struggles to uncurl. The sky is thick with the bold drum of clouds. The forest floor is dark and welcoming, and Derek falls into the trail easily like it’s a new routine twisting out before his feet. </p><p>It’s foolish in a way, and he knows it - to continue to place himself back at the scene of death and violence. But he finds the call too loud to resist, and he circles the lot of woods like it’s his obligation. </p><p>Delicately picking apart the invisible paths between the trees, Derek walks alone, though in the shadows of the clouds and his mind he’s flanked by two betas. </p><p>The bodies of the hunters haven’t been magically repositioned on the leaves, as the wind picks up so do the voices in his mind and in the shadows at his sides.</p><p><i>They’re trusting you to figure this out,</i> Boyd’s voice says to him, rich and low as the cold drag of wind infiltrates the forest. Derek has the scent of clotted blood held tight within his senses, winding through the trees after it. He’s only just latched on to retrace the trail when the doubt comes on.</p><p><i>Is this a different trail than when you traced it last?</i> Erica’s voice, digging into him, imploring and fierce and he catches himself answering her in a musing mutter.</p><p>“I’m not sure.” Boyd’s voice again - <i> they’re trusting you to be sure.</i> The scent he’s following is winding and doubling back like tangled ropes, like catacomb halls, and Derek’s steps are stalling, turning, back-tracking. </p><p> </p><p>It’s a different trail. It takes him two goes around to be sure. But even through the whipping wind he’s sure. The path the bodies had vanished into - the three paths, all splintering into the woods around the clearing - had been paved over. Danced over and around like the looping scrawl of mindless ink, like someone had taken the scent and swirled it every which way, and Derek can make no sense of it. </p><p>He can imagine the members of his pack - the living ones - looking at him silently as he tells them he’s without a clue, without a hope. He can imagine their judgement, their vulnerability as he lets them down as the dead ones chant and whisper at his sides. </p><p>
  <i> They’re trusting you like we trusted you.</i>
</p><p>He chases the loops, seeking out the scent of blood and death, running almost blind with confusion. Three bodies, three separate trails, all of it blending together with the wind, the stench of death, but still holding on to those unique notes each. But the notes of each body are doubling up, replaying the same lines through the trees and Derek catches himself stumbling at the overlap. </p><p>He’s back on the path that leads back to Hale house. His fangs beg to drop out when he realizes exactly where he’s standing - shocked and surrounded by the scent of Stiles. </p><p>It’s desperation and that biting pulse of relief when he suddenly catches onto that other scent. That <i>something else</i> that Isaac had mentioned. It brews dark like musk and minerals, imposing and alone. </p><p>In the next breath Derek is running back out from the woods with their twisting trails. Running until the sounds of Erica and Boyd are fading, fading, falling at his back. </p><p>
  <i>We trusted you. We trusted you.</i>
</p><p> </p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸</p>
</div><p> </p><p> </p><p>The storm hits in the time it takes Derek to return to the loft and he returns drenched, the rain soaking through his clothes and dripping down the lines of his face. He shoulders his way through the door, eager to be dry and his phone is buzzing incessantly through the damp pocket of his jacket.</p><p>Stiles’ name is flashing on the screen and Derek answers with a rough voice.</p><p>“Power’s out over here, I won’t be able to tap into the police lines until it’s back,” Stiles says. Through the phone it’s tinny and metallic sounding, strained from far out down the line. </p><p>“You can set up at the loft,” Derek says back. “We’re on the same grid as the hospital.” </p><p>A distant rumble of thunder from outside drowns out Stiles’ reply, and Derek interjects again. </p><p>“I’ll pick you up,” he says, waiting for the amending sound on the other line before hanging up. </p><p>Something about the worsening storm is drawing out an urge to gather everyone together, and Derek lessens the antsy feeling beneath his skin by brushing against Isaac in the hall, marking him casually and ignoring the beta’s grumbles at the smear of rain. He fills Isaac in on what he found - the scent in the woods, the confusing whirl of the trails before shedding his soaked layers and redressing in dry clothes. </p><p> </p><p>The roads shine and streak the traffic lights in bright diagonals, the windshield wipers of the scarce few passing cars all buzzing on the highest setting, and Derek’s skin is buzzing too as he makes the drive across town. </p><p>The radio is barking out an extended weather warning and Derek swats it off as he pulls up to the house, not missing the wince that moves across Stiles’ frame as he awkwardly pulls the door shut behind him. </p><p> </p><p>Back inside the loft the static and the high pitched wailing frequencies of the police scanner dig into Derek’s ears like hookworms. The sounds are registering higher, sharper, more electric as the moon sighs and rolls closer and closer to the earth, needling into his hearing, drilling small holes in the sides of his skull. </p><p>Amid the headache of sound there’s a small handful of peace too. </p><p>Isaac is draped over the end of the couch across from Stiles and the sounds of breathing and resting heartbeats soothe like cool salve across Derek’s disposition. The presence of company without the pressure of conversation, and something aches within him at the simple act of sharing space. </p><p> </p><p>The police line spits out a onslaught of cop jargon and intermittent chatter. Stiles ignores most of it, busying himself with a college textbook instead while occasionally lifting his head up to translate some of the codes and answer Isaac’s questions. </p><p>The scanner doesn’t offer up anything of much use. No recounts of bodies found or missing persons, and eventually it trails off to a repeated series of downed telephone lines being reported and minor car accidents from the rain. </p><p> </p><p>By the end of the evening Derek’s head has mostly settled, drifting through a shroud of pressure brought on by the moon instead of the restless paranoia stemming from the woods. </p><p>Outside the weather has grown violent and Derek can see the apprehension in Stiles’ eyes. They’re caught in the way the wind slides outside the windows. Night has fallen completely and Derek can feel the crackle of nerves stitched inside the room. </p><p>There’s Isaac’s tension building with the draw of the moon, Stiles’ aversion to returning to the night and the storm’s claim on it. Shared between them is the ancient call to seek shelter, to burrow deep and ride out the storm. It’s familiar to Derek too, easy to understand, and the stiffness idling through Stiles’ posture makes Derek unwilling to pull him from the couch. </p><p>“Why don’t you stay here tonight,” Derek says, and there’s a wilt across Stiles’ shoulders that makes Derek certain he’ll accept before he says anything. </p><p>“Yeah, that’d be great,” Stiles says, sinking back into the couch cushions with a relieved sway. There’s a knit of comfortable silence then that stretches out around them before Isaac retires down the hall, and Derek settles in too, giving Stiles’ shoulder a gentle parting squeeze as he heads to bed.</p><p> </p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸</p>
</div><p> </p><p> </p><p>Derek is dragged back to consciousness.

</p><p>He’s not sure what it is that’s woken him. It feels like a coin toss - either the storm outside rattling the windows in their frames or simply his own mind not wanting to be subjected to the content of his moon-stained dreams. But through the stillness of the loft holding in the dark an uneasy sound snakes out, pulling Derek’s attention towards it like a lure. </p><p>Derek slides off from his mattress. Part of him wants to brush off how wide awake and jolted he feels. It would be simple to write off the noise as Stiles shifting in his sleep, but something nips at Derek’s heels, that pressing hand at the back of his skull directing him, demanding that he seek out the sound. </p><p>It comes again - this time a slew of straining words all broken up by the drag of choppy breaths. </p><p>The scent that explodes across Derek’s senses next is something purely human. Cloying panic surges into the air, dripping down his airway and Derek wades into it as he approaches the couch. His next breath draws in a fresh and sticking blast of fear that’s drenched in the familiarity of Stiles’ scent. So potent it nearly bowls him over, and Derek feels the lines of his skeleton wrenching into a new shape beneath his skin. </p><p>It’s the wolf in him that reaches out through the dark, makes him lay a hand on Stiles’ sleeping frame. He’s flattened out on the couch, breaths coming out hard and snagging at his throat, distorting into jagged whines and he flinches under the pressure of Derek’s hand. </p><p>“Stiles,” Derek says, and his own voice feels crashing in comparison, even in a whisper. Dread smells like smoke and metal, a bitterness that folds and eclipses the air, and Derek wants it gone even as the wolf inside his skull laps at the fear, the raw and human heartbeat pounding underneath him.</p><p>“Stiles, wake up,” Derek insists, not wanting to push harder on the shoulder beneath, not knowing what else to do. He secures his grip instead, shaking gently and Stiles jerks awake, gasping away from Derek’s hand.</p><p>“Derek?” He says, voice wet in waking and eyes wide, wading through the shadows. </p><p>“You alright?” Derek asks. There’s a hesitant caution in his tone that clips in his own ears, a rattle of <i>not good at this</i> that’s reflected in Stiles’ gaging stare. </p><p>“Fine,” Stiles says in the next moment. “Fine, I’m fine, it was just...” he trails off, gesturing uselessly.</p><p>“Just a dream,” Derek says neutrally, and his next inhale draws in a flare of shame that covers the swiftly fleeing fear at the same time Stiles says, “God, that’s embarrassing.” </p><p>“It’s okay,” Derek says, surprising himself with how easily he says it. </p><p>“Did I wake you up?” Stiles asks next. It’s said just as quickly. </p><p>“Wasn’t asleep yet,” Derek says, wondering why he felt the need to lie until Stiles is sighing with something that’s too tired to quite be pure relief. He moves to sit up, wincing at the stiffness in his joints and tendons as he tries to adjust on the couch. Derek catches the irregular twitch and is sitting on the edge of the couch in the next moment, catching a light hold of Stiles’ hands at the first knuckle with his fingers. </p><p>The pain that oozes out into Derek’s touch is dulled down, not as bright as the day before but still heavy and dragging. </p><p> </p><p>“Stressed?” Derek says, a stiff offering through the dark, and the silence that hangs between them stretches on for long enough that he’s not sure Stiles is going to take it.</p><p>“Yeah,” Stiles says finally, and a rocky sigh slips out like he’s trying to gather the last of his bearings. “My dad’s back tomorrow, he’s going to flip out about this,” he gestures limply to the wrappings on his arms. “Just another thing he doesn’t need to worry about - ”</p><p>“So you’re worrying about it,” Derek finishes. </p><p>“Can you feel that too?” Stiles asks a little dryly, pointedly pulling his hands away from Derek’s touch. Derek’s fingertips chase the motion before falling back to the fabric of the cushions. </p><p>“It’s a smell,” Derek says absentmindedly and Stiles stiffens defensively. </p><p>“Well I’ll be out of here in the morning,” Stiles says.</p><p>“College?” Derek asks. He catches himself locked onto the sight of Stiles’ hands nestled on his abdomen. The skin still looks an angry red, mottled against the hem of the white bandage, cuticles and knuckles holding onto swelling and fluid the wrapped wire had brought on.</p><p>“Classes got cancelled until the power comes back,” Stiles says, a yawn chewing into the centre of his words. He pauses then, sighs roughly. “I don’t know how I’m going to hide this from my dad while I’m stuck in a house with him.” </p><p>“Stay here,” Derek says, and through the dark he can see Stiles blinking at him with surprise. </p><p>“Really?” Stiles says, “I mean, shit, yeah, if you don’t mind.” Derek looks at him, taking in the sight of him curled atop the cushions. There’s a faded smear of tired weight beneath his eyes, and soft peals of terror are still whispering to the wolf inside Derek’s head. </p><p>“I don’t mind,” Derek says, standing up from the couch with the scent of fresh sweat and fading dreams tangling through his senses. With the sound of Stiles’ settling heartbeat in his ears he pulls the top layer of blanket from his bed. Moving back to the centre of the room, he drops it over the back of the couch. </p><p>“Thanks,” Stiles says, muffled by the fabric, voice soft as it is dry.</p><p>“Go back to sleep,” Derek says in response.</p><p> </p><p>Derek moves back to his bed to stand beside the wall of windows, listening as Stiles’ breathing evens out and deepens as he sinks back into sleep. Derek doesn’t bother trying to match him, just gives in to the restless energy his muscles are housing, quietly feeling the moon move closer with every passing minute.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Thanks for reading, hope you're enjoying ~ kudos/comments are very much appreciated</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. In The Deep And Dark Hours Of The Night</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The morning of the full moon comes on with the rocking violence of a ship anchored through a swelling storm. </p><p>On the couch Stiles is draped in Derek’s scent, dead to the world and Derek lets him sleep. He’s grateful for the silence - the police scanner is powered up but switched to standby, and there’s a pounding picking up in Derek’s skull. It’s a physical manifestation of the effort of maintaining a human form, and when Isaac emerges from down the hall it’s with a high-wired gleam in his eye that Derek can feel reflected in his own, shining in tandem.</p><p>“Scott’s on his way,” Isaac informs him, pocketing his phone with a slight tremble in his hands. Derek recognizes it easily - a struggle with the power dripping down towards them from the sky. Isaac hides it well.</p><p>Derek sheaths him with his own scent, brushing past him with a soft headbutt before locking himself in the bathroom and switching the shower on. His grasp on the moment feels strained, his ability to hold a grasp on the situation feels more so and in his mind he can feel Scott’s presence edging closer. Louder, clearer, he can hear the active pulse of Isaac’s heart rate a room away. He’s aware of a connection with the taller beta that’s stronger, deeper than what he feels with Scott, and the distance makes him nervous. </p><p>The water flows over the back of his head, plastering his hair to his scalp and his thoughts distort and flow too as if they’ve been coaxed to the surface by the heat. </p><p> </p><p>Drying off and dressing feels like a hindrance, a fetid obligation. Derek is sick of clothes and performing roles that feel manufactured and made up. They don’t align with the cool drawl of the moon against his bones. </p><p> </p><p>Not long after, Scott comes over bound so tightly with Allison’s scent it’s as if he belongs to her. Derek greets this by clapping his hands to either side of Scott’s shoulders, smearing his palms across his arms to place his own claim over him. Scott doesn’t pull away from the motion, just distributes his weight like he’s waiting it out with a veiled impatience.</p><p>The full moon paints Scott with rough brushstrokes. Subtle changes to his posture, the hold of his brow, and something seems to shift and stir behind his eyes. A hidden flicker of something darker and more hostile than anything Derek had ever seen Scott act out or even acknowledge. </p><p>It’s another strain, another inch of distance between them as Derek finds himself locking eyes with this lowered, level stare the moon has imposed on Scott now. The strain pulls at Derek, pulls him a step away from Scott as a recurring and below-the-surface thought returns to him. It’s a fickle, fleeting thing, something he had always wondered but never voiced. A suspicion about bitten wolves, a digging theory that they absorbed traits from their alpha along with the change. It’s a suspicion present in how Isaac’s temper walks hand in hand with his uncertainty. In the distance Boyd had held himself away from the pack. Present in the way Erica’s ghost curls around Derek’s dreams, asking silently with hurt eyes why he never came for her. </p><p>These thoughts are gone as quickly as they surface - banished back below, unfair and aching. And just as fast, that glint is gone from Scott’s eyes as he draws further into the loft.  </p><p> </p><p>Scott’s energy is all fast talk and liquid movements fuelled by the moon as he crosses into the loft in a beeline towards Stiles. On the couch Stiles is slowly waking, processing the new figure spouting words of greeting and almost manic engagement. There’s a relaxed coil of scent that enters Stiles’ orbit next as he’s struggling to match Scott’s level, gears grinding as they wake. </p><p>“We should grab that book from the truck, there might be something useful in it,” Scott is saying, skipping straight into things, facts that Derek assumes Isaac has told him in turn through bulleted texts. </p><p>Stiles, considerably less in the loop, sits up groggily and fixes Scott with a blank stare. </p><p>“Huh?”</p><p>“You don’t know about the book?” Scott asks, interpreting Stiles’ response as something brought on by more than the haziness of oversleeping.  </p><p>“Nobody tells me anything,” Stiles says with a groan, his tone somehow conveying both pleasantry and petulance, and Scott laughs. </p><p>“I’ll fill you in,” Scott says. “Basically, no one can find the bodies, and Isaac and Derek have been scanning through that section - ”</p><p>“Okay, hang on,” Stiles interrupts, shimmying off the couch and knocking the police radio to the carpet in the process. He groans again, stooping to pick it up with an uncoordinated grip and Scott seizes the opportunity to continue talking. </p><p>“The hunters had this logbook in their truck - ” </p><p>“Yeah, hold that thought,” Stiles interrupts again, gingerly placing the radio onto the table, but Scott merely shifts to the side of the couch and carries on. From the edge of the hall, Derek watches with a glint of amusement he keeps carefully hidden at the role reversal as Scott powers over Stiles with his rampant talking. </p><p>“They had notes on whoever it was they were looking for - not Derek, and - ”</p><p>“Jesus, Scott, two seconds please,” Stiles says, sharper this time. He’s on his second attempt to move past Scott in the living room, each time met with Scott’s wide stance and a wall of information he can’t step around despite his efforts.</p><p><i> “What?”</i> Scott asks, and it’s partial bemusement interlaced with the moon’s effects on his patience. </p><p>“I’m not going to process a single word you say until I go to the bathroom,” Stiles says. It’s a little controlling, a little sheepish, and Scott laughs. </p><p>“I swear you have the world’s smallest bladder,” Scott chides as he steps dramatically to the side and Stiles forces out an unappreciative breath. </p><p>“I’m well aware, thanks for reminding me,” he says, finally surging out of the room and down the hall. </p><p>They almost collide in the hall, Derek catching the wince in his pulse, the flare of muscles held tight. It’s tensely paired with slowly waking coordination as Stiles practically flings himself out of the room. He comes shuddering to a stop, almost making contact with Derek but falling just shy of impact.</p><p>There’s a shocked apology startling to the surface immediately with the reflexive ripple that runs through Stiles’ body, though he doesn’t say anything. Just falters, spine curving, eyes slipping up to Derek’s face then dropping away from his eyes. </p><p>The stance is pure animal conciliation. It springs like a wire tapped into the language centre of Derek’s mind - swollen with the moon, with the wolf-shape carving out - and he responds in his nature without thinking. </p><p>Derek shifts further to the side of the hall that Stiles has retreated to and bumps their shoulders together. It’s gentle, forgiveness in wolf tones, and he punctuates it with a reassuring brush of the side of his chin against Stiles’ cheek as he passes by. </p><p>The peculiar look that crosses Stiles’ face next is entirely human, a frozen hue of surprise as Derek parts off, exiting the hall. There’s a beat then the bathroom door is slamming shut. </p><p> </p><p>Back in the living area Isaac is explaining to Scott what he hadn’t conveyed through text - the scattering disarray of the paths, the strange wall of presence that scent had created, that sense of <i>other.</i></p><p>As he explains and Scott listens openly, Derek can see the way that <i>other</i> had affected Isaac - was still affecting him. It lives in a tense line scoured through Isaac’s demeanour like he’s trying to talk around a toothache.</p><p>Stiles pads back down the hall a moment later, wading into Isaac’s uneasiness and the general high strung state of the wolves with a decidedly neutral state. It’s blatantly human - unattuned to the frequencies of both the moon and the flares of chemical scents - as well as a direct byproduct of Scott’s presence. Through his own enhanced state, his own ripples of tension, Derek finds that the unaffected stature is something he wants to keep around. </p><p> </p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>		⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸</p>
</div><p> </p><p>Late morning turns into afternoon without a fuss, the time running like syrup. It congeals the hours, pours thinly through minutes and when Derek weaves back into the living area he’s mostly unaware of how much time has passed. </p><p>On the coffee table the police scanner is chirping and crackling.  </p><p>“Nobody’s been reported missing yet,” Stiles informs Derek from the couch. “And no bodies from the woods.” There’s an impatient snip to Stiles’ tone that confuses Derek for a moment. He hadn’t pressed for an update, and Scott was sitting next to Stiles, casually close. However, as Derek crosses into the room the new angle shows him the disconnect.</p><p>Scott’s fingers and eyes are both glued to the screen of his phone, the slouch in his posture suggesting he’s been set there for a while like cement in a mold. </p><p>Beside him on the couch Stiles looks equal parts bored and annoyed, and a little like being passively ignored is physically paining him. There’s a grate to his expression as the police scanner carries on, a long suffering tick to one eye as if the whinge and crackle of the device has been bothering him the whole time.</p><p>On cue with Derek’s gaze and entry to the room it all comes to a head when one particularly high pitched note has the wolves wincing and Stiles jerking to switch it off with a laboured twist of the wrist that’s bogged down and entirely lacking in dexterity. </p><p>Isaac relaxes considerably once the thing’s off, and Scott is already reabsorbed in his phone screen. Stiles, however, seems caught in an increase of tension once silence returns to the room. The stiffness in his arms extends down through the line of his body with one foot tapping out a frenzied beat beneath the table. He twitches where he’s reclined back on the couch with a sudden flare of agitation that Derek can’t lock down a cause for.</p><p>“Why haven’t they found them yet?” Stiles snaps out suddenly. “Why haven’t <i>you</i> found them yet?” Derek feels a stab of responsibility at this, but the outburst is clearly directed to Scott, who’s looked up from his phone with surprise. </p><p>“It’s only been four days,” Scott points out mildly, assessing the frustrated expression on Stiles’ face and pocketing his phone in response to it. “It’s a big area too.” </p><p>“Four days you have been conveniently absent from,” Stiles points out, and Scott shoots him a puzzled look. </p><p>“What do you mean?”</p><p>“I mean, gang of werewolf hunters show up in town, get their throats torn out, vanish into thin air, and now that you <i>are</i> aware of all that, everyone’s just sitting around twiddling their thumbs. Except for me - I can’t twiddle my thumbs - ” Stiles punctuates this particular descriptor with a stiff gesture that’s more shoulders than anything else - “thumbs are un-twiddle-able.”  </p><p>“Isaac and Derek have been out multiple times searching that section,” Scott says, speaking slowly like he’s hoping the words will sink in better that way. </p><p>“Right,” Stiles says, a little begrudgingly. “But shouldn’t you lot be heading out soon anyway?” he continues, adding in an unfairly contemptuous glance to where Isaac has come to stand at the edge of the hall to listen to the onslaught. “I can practically feel that one brooding moodily in the corner.”</p><p>“Why are <i>you</i> so moody?” Scott says back, an amused inflection carrying over the tense line the moon is arcing through him. Stiles finally seems to lag then, hesitating before sagging and shaking his head like he’s clearing something from it. </p><p>“Just frustrated...that I can’t help more,” he says after collecting himself, and Scott gives him a peculiar look that Derek tries not to intercept. It’s difficult to interpret - searching, sympathizing - and Scott seems to find what he’s looking for, and drops it. </p><p>“Don’t worry,” Scott says. There’s a gentleness imposed through his tone that Derek’s almost impressed by. “We’ll figure this out, and you’ll get better - ” Stiles sighs tersely and Scott huffs out a soft laugh. “It’ll be alright,” he finishes. </p><p> </p><p>Stiles doesn’t appear to be entirely placated; the frustration still buzzes around his form, although the snapping seems done with and Scott hovers a little closer around him until they’re gearing up to head out. </p><p>Derek pauses at the door.</p><p>“Stay in tonight,” Derek says, and Stiles twitches an eyebrow at him.</p><p>“Aw, really? ‘Cause I was thinking about taking a nice leisurely stroll through the woods,” he says pointedly, and another gust of wind rattles the window panes as if underlining his point. Shaking his head while Scott snorts from the hall, Derek steps out of the loft, pulling the door shut behind him. </p><p> </p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>		⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸</p>
</div><p> </p><p>“Has he been that wound up this whole time?” Scott asks once they’re en route to the woods. His tone a little bit accusing, and Derek doesn’t like how it’s been sharpened to point at him. </p><p>“Not until you showed up,” he answers, and Scott’s posture flags a little. </p><p>“Oh,” Scott says then. “Yeah, he does get kind of tetchy when I spend too much time with Allison.” The admission comes out almost like an apology, as if it’s something Derek should have been warned about. </p><p>“Sure,” Derek says, grazing Scott with a glance. “She took you away from him.” He’s not talking about Stiles, but the combination of the moon and the task at hand camouflages this from Scott without effort. </p><p>“I guess,” Scott says. He doesn’t sound guilty so much as morose. “It’s nice of you to let him stay at yours,” he adds. It’s an offering, a recognition of shared assets, and Derek accepts it. </p><p>“He seemed pretty upset at the prospect of his father finding out.” </p><p>“He’s protective like that,” Scott amends. There’s a distending silence then, something that creeps up around them as they both begin to scan the trees for shapes and scents. </p><p>Derek gives in to the allure of nature then, letting the moon bleed into his senses, feeling the way it’s licking and dancing around Scott too. The quiet of the woods snakes around them too, carrying on for a while until Derek is too aware of it, and is about to ask where Isaac has disappeared to when the beta is calling out to him with a demanding presence in his voice. </p><p> </p><p>When Derek and Scott catch up to him, Isaac is standing stock-still, the line of his shoes pointing a line in the dirt towards a dark object. </p><p>It’s the tattered remains of a hiking boot shredded on the ground, half-buried in dirt. The scent of iron coiling up from the object tells them all without checking that a human foot is still encased inside.</p><p>“That belong to one of the hunters?” Scott asks. There’s a flatly serious dig to his voice now, dark and intense and Derek nods. The scent of blood has sparked up the flavour in Derek’s mouth, a twin memory of slaying the man. Though the body had still been intact when he was finished with it. </p><p> Derek is about to lock his authority around the situation, take control and disperse roles and tasks for searching and disposing when he catches the line of Scott’s vision, trapped on something hanging on a low bush of brambles. </p><p> </p><p>At first the shape looks man-made. Thin like braided rope, a snare left hidden in the leaves, but then Derek moves closer to stand beside Scott and he can see what it really is. </p><p>A segment of intestine is drawing a loop around the thorns, dipping like the tracks of a rollercoaster, decorating the thick brush. The piece of organ is a blushing pink in the moonlight, stretched empty and severed jaggedly at both ends. </p><p>“What did this?” Scott asks, extending a hand to the gore decorating the leaves as if he’s in awe of it before retracting his fingers quickly. “Could it have been animals?” Derek’s about to answer when Isaac beats him to it. He’s further out, his voice grave and scattered through the trees.</p><p>“I don’t think there’s an animal out there that does something like this.” Derek and Scott exchange a glance - ominous, unsure - before moving through the trees to join Isaac. </p><p>The rest of the hunters lay in wait for them.</p><p> </p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>		⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸</p>
</div><p> </p><p>Their bodies have been strung up in the trees, an offering to whoever came across it. </p><p>From the ground Derek can see the sharp divots from where small branches and pine needles had bitten hungrily into the flesh, larger grooves from the beaks of crows. Larger still were the gashes from his own claws, cutting smooth and true, deliberate and so unlike the messy gouges running through the bodies, the markings at the point of severance, the licks and lashes littered across the limbs. </p><p>Organs carved out from their cavities now sit impaled by branches overhead. Fingers and toes snipped off at the root and scraped along coarse bark, decorating a meandering line of trees like sick ornaments. </p><p>The trio move wordlessly beneath the carnage, drinking in the quiet glow of innards and bright bone lit up in the gaps by the moon. </p><p>Underneath the hollow canopy, listening to the canter of Scott and Isaac’s heartbeats Derek is struck by the feeling of being watched from the right, and as he turns towards the sensation he’s met with the eyeless face of one of the hunters. It’s been peeled from the bone beneath and glued with tissue to cover the open knot of a crooked elm. </p><p>It’s here, this section of the unmarked path that Derek picks up a hard punch of chemo signals that translate to <i>glee,</i> drowning beneath the unease that’s leaking from the two betas. His nostrils flare, brow creasing into the shift, committing the scent to memory. It buries deep. </p><p>Together they cross another half mile, picking out the sights of the remaining sets of limbs. They’re bent and twisted high up in the trees like ink and brushstrokes against the night, eagerly spelling out the answers to all of their unvoiced questions. No one seems able to translate the language, and the smell of that <i>other</i> traipses just as eagerly all along the unlit path around them. </p><p> </p><p>The full moon directs a cruel spotlight to Scott and Isaac’s uneasiness and it sweats and bulges at the beam. </p><p>Derek’s own unease feels irrelevant, something small to be dismissed and crushed out, no room for that kind of weak reaction without also losing his frayed grip of control.  </p><p>He leans into that control now - the drive to keep them all in one place - to get back to the safety of the loft. It doesn’t live like <i>home</i> inside his mind, but there’s no place that does anymore, and nothing comes closer than the swell of feeling them all together. But here, now, the three of them between the trees, something’s missing, some quintessential gear and Derek can’t tell if it’s the where - the trees grow and twist dark and there’s that <i>other</i> swimming between - or the who. The <i>who</i>’s that are missing. </p><p>Derek can feel the missing ones flanking him as he gathers Scott and Isaac, urges them away from all the carnage strung above. He wonders as they pick up speed, running alongside each other, if he could leave them all there in the trees. All the dead who aren’t coming back in the same way that he hadn’t come back for them. </p><p>He doesn’t let himself dwell any longer on them now. Not when lives and threats are burning all around him, and Derek can feel Isaac’s heartbeat striding to match his own. He can feel the hot jet of Scott’s breath, can feel the synchronicity of their footsteps and their forms, their shadows blurring together like <i>pack</i> and just for a moment Derek thinks he could have it, could have just one small piece of it until Scott is pulling to a stop at the fork in the road. Is shaking his head with a low breath of apology before he’s turning, then he’s vanishing down the road in the other direction. </p><p>Derek watches him leave, feels that straining distance pulling further like an elastic band knotted inside his chest. It pulls and snaps in rhythm with the simple fact that Scott has somewhere else to be, has someplace else that feels like home, and Derek is powerless to compete with it. </p><p>He doesn’t call after him. Doesn’t try at all - he recognizes defeat, recognizes pointlessness as easily as his own reflection. And like that reflection, Isaac is looking to him with questions burning in the amber light of his eyes, and all Derek can do is press an arm around his shoulders and steer him back without answers. </p><p> </p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>		⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸</p>
</div><p> </p><p>On the couch Stiles is sleeping, but it’s fitful, uneasy. He doesn’t wake when Derek shuts the door behind them, or when Isaac traipses down the hall to shut himself in his room. The post-moon exhaustion is nipping at Derek too, but something in the line of Stiles’ neck pulls him away from his own bed, and into the open space of the living room. </p><p>Stiles shifts his head, the back of his skull dragging across the fabric of the couch as a faint series of noises drag out too, like he’s speaking in his dream.</p><p>There’s no scent of fear or panic aside from the one imprinted on Derek’s mind but he still moves closer like he’s being drawn in by the restlessness.</p><p>Stiles is laying flat on his back, eyes shifting beneath his closed lids, mouth slack as Derek approaches cautiously. His arms are angled narrowly at his sides, suggesting that even in sleep they’re uncomfortable, stiff and unmovable without a block of pain. </p><p>Derek extends an arm, claws sheathed and movements slow and is about to lay his palm on Stiles’ arm when he freezes instead, eyes stilling on the sleeping figure. A low groan crawls out from Stiles’ throat then, his head shifting on the cushion, thighs flexing open slightly. </p><p>Derek’s senses ripple with an electric current next, his spine locking up in the realization that he isn’t scenting any fear or panic in the air because there wasn’t any, there wasn’t going to be any because Stiles wasn’t having a nightmare, he was hard beneath his sweatpants, and as soon as the observation solidifies in Derek’s mind he’s hit with the scent of arousal. It slams into the forefront of his mind, sinking up into the roof of his mouth and disintegrating his next string of thoughts. </p><p>Derek can see a thousand shapes inside his mind all at once, all competing for space like ingrown teeth. </p><p>There’s the coil of intestines draped almost artfully across the jagged hand of branches, poised and deliberate. Can see Stiles, blood on his mouth and clouds in his eyes, his arms pinned behind him, his body twisted, squirming. </p><p>The moon is bulging in his skull, demanding to be bowed to before it sinks away, waning and receding like the fast dilution of warm breath through cold air, the fine hairs that raise and lower at the backs of necks. </p><p>At the back of his neck now is the tight grip of compulsion, pinning thoughts like clawed memories into his mind. All things Derek doesn’t want to think about, things he’s kept a lid on, keeps pressing with shaking muscle to hold down, but as he slips beneath the pressure of the moon, the carnage in the woods, they come to him.</p><p>Like Erica would come to him after violence, all dark lips and hot skin. The taste of her and how it clung to him,<br/>
bright and red and mirroring the violent things that brought it on.<br/>
How the same violence would shatter and reflect in the yellow glow of Isaac’s eyes. Bright enough to blind, too dim to eclipse the other images fighting to be next. </p><p>The splash of torn arteries, the stink of the hunters, the indent of the missing bodies on the forest floor. The tangle of guts and gristle hanging on the branches like garland around door frames. Doors burnt from their hinges. Stiles, pinned and breaking in the woods. The grinning glint of the wire winch, the drag and tension of Stiles’ feet against the leaves, the way he’d dropped to his knees -</p><p>Derek can hear the breaking whine of desperation in his mind and as it wraps and dances with the scent of heat, of pressing and demanding hormones and it echoes in his head before another noise from the couch is overpowering the rampant imaginings.</p><p>It’s a soft sound, a breath that scrapes the back of Stiles’ throat and breaks into the room and it’s Derek’s breaking point too. Snapped out of whatever trance had fallen over him - the moon, the blood between the trees and he can’t reason with them - Derek stumbles backwards to the door, yanks it open just to slam it back closed. </p><p>The resulting crash, the rattle in the frame tears Stiles from his sleep and he jerks halfway to upright, eyes stumbling in a useless search through the loft. </p><p>“Derek?” Stiles calls out. His voice sounds like chalk and gravel in Derek’s ears, startled awake with sleep still pinning down his senses.</p><p>Derek doesn’t answer, doesn’t trust his words to make nice with the fangs demanding to break out again. He roughly toes his shoes off instead, kicking them with needless force to clatter against the baseboards, and he can hear Stiles shifting on the couch. </p><p>He’s sitting up by the time Derek has shouldered his coat to the floor and crossed back into the main room. Derek can see him trying to catalogue his surroundings, picking shapes out of the shadows.</p><p>“Derek?” Stiles says again, softer this time, more apprehensive and Derek sounds a low greeting that comes out as more growl than he had intended. </p><p>“Everything okay?” Stiles asks, and a prickle carries down the base of Derek’s spine as he hears Stiles swallow, the noise sticking in his throat. The heady scent of arousal is fogging through Derek’s mind and he doesn’t miss the way Stiles looks down at himself next, quickly tipping forwards to disguise the product of his dream. </p><p>The high hammer of his heart won’t be hidden though, and the full moon won’t let Derek tune it out. Stiles looks acutely terrified in the dark but it’s diluted on his face with a gloss of sleep and flushed heat, and the fierceness of the wolf in Derek’s mind is delighted by the combination and unwilling to be leashed. </p><p>“Everything’s fine,” Derek says. His mouth feels soaked, his words dripping with hollowness and on the couch Stiles shifts his position. His rough awakening is slinking off, fight or flight making a swift exit and he tries to adjust. Leaning his weight to one side with an arm as an anchor, Derek is trying not to breathe through his nose as Stiles hisses at the pressure, quickly pulling his arm back out of the movement. </p><p>The scent of pain chews its way into the room immediately. In a heartbeat it mingles with the guilt that radiates from Derek. </p><p>Confusion and alarm are written across Stiles’ expression, distorting the lax warmth that had consumed him in his sleep, and Derek finds himself moving towards the couch without any forethought. </p><p>It’s with the same unconscious motion that he’s lowering himself down and slipping his fingers to Stiles’ neck, wrestling with the urge to fan them around his throat to feel the rampant pulse beneath. </p><p>There’s a shocked inhale before the layer of pain soaks into Derek’s veins and Stiles groans with a fatigued and heavy sound. It reaches Derek like the lash of claws across his skin, a well deserved whip, and he’s suddenly furious with himself for waking someone so clearly exhausted, and with such impulsive violence. </p><p>“Go back to sleep,” Derek says, an apology as worthless as his usual efforts. Stiles shudders back down, detaching Derek’s hand from his neck, one arm falling in front of his lap, too casually imposed to be anything but intentional. </p><p> </p><p>Derek shuts himself in the bathroom next, stepping into the shower stall and turning the dial to the coldest setting. He scrubs the grip of the forest from his skin until it’s screaming, all red and pulled tight.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Thanks for reading, hope you're enjoying ~ kudos/comments are very much appreciated<br/>Tumblr: https:/ nacreousgore.tumblr.com</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Isolated Lights On The Abyss Of Ignorance</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Stiles isn’t sleeping when Derek returns to the hall with a towel held in a loose cover around his waist. Instead, Stiles is waiting for him. The faint sound of Derek’s footsteps interrupt his pacing and he anchors into place in the shadows at the sight of him. </p><p>There’s an energy trapped beneath Stiles’ skin that Derek can read, can so clearly see how he wants to approach. How he’s apprehensive, and in turn how that same energy is dragging him through that slow tentative terror to approach anyway. This approach cumulates with Stiles asking him in a low voice - <i>you sure everything’s fine?</i> and Derek is caving entirely without resistance. </p><p> </p><p>Derek’s not sure why it feels so simple. His patience and his willpower so eroded by the moon and the dismemberment, or maybe it’s a suggestion imposed by the ghost of Stiles’ earlier words - that friendly petulant complaint to Scott how <i>nobody tells me anything</i> - and Derek is reporting their grisly findings in the woods. </p><p> </p><p>He leaves out the details that shine bright against the monster of his own psyche, though Stiles’ grimace implies that he can see it all the same. He doesn’t seem surprised though, or aghast in any way. In the face of it Derek supposes that he should have expected as much, that Stiles has been conditioned to prepare for the worst, and now, he takes the news in stride. </p><p>By the time Derek is finished recounting the night Stiles doesn’t hit him with questions that Derek can’t answer. He just says rather plainly <i>“why didn’t you want to tell me?”</i> It’s a little bit hurt and a little offended, all wrapped up with a neutral sort of curiosity, a demand to understand the inner workings of people’s choices and Derek finds himself answering without finesse that <i>“I didn’t want to wake you.”</i> </p><p>His words don’t stick the landing. Not with the echo of that slamming door a splintering crash in its hinges, and Stiles has a defensive and calculated flicker in his eyes then, a sharp blade of <i>you know, we both know</i> - but just as brightly it’s snuffing out and Stiles is sitting back easily on the couch. </p><p>In the quiet of the room, Derek can feel the presence of the rising sun as its own entity separate to the fadings of the full moon. The corners of the sky outside the windows are going almost green, sick and vicious as the night bleeds out. </p><p>“You should go back to sleep,” Derek says into the colour of the pre-dawn. </p><p>“Yeah, not really an option after hearing that,” Stiles replies with a sarcastic sniff. “I don’t have the energy to fight off the nightmares that wants to give me.”</p><p> </p><p>There’s a lull that follows then, to which Derek wants to ask if it really takes a conscious effort to stave them off, how that would even work - a conscious effort in an unconscious state. He can feel the moon, the weight of the night, of not knowing and needing too. Can feel all of it peeling off from his skin, his thoughts a tumbled mess now of conscious versus subconscious and he’s minutely aware of that last tendril of the moon’s hold on him loosening, withering him into a fuddled sea of weariness. </p><p>He snaps back to the moment, catching himself sliding off into his own head, and he clears his throat roughly. In front of him, Stiles starts at the noise, pulling his eyes away from Derek’s form. </p><p>“Sorry,” Stiles is saying, almost under his breath, and as Derek reapplies his focus into the room he can’t pin what it is Stiles is sorry for. He doesn’t get a chance to clarify before Stiles is muttering that he’s heading out to raid the nearest corner store. </p><p> </p><p>“Need a hand?” Derek asks, a bit delayed as Stiles already has his shoes on and is struggling to work the door open with his busted grip. </p><p>“I can do it myself,” Stiles says curtly. Derek’s glance over the uncomfortable hold of his body is unconvinced. </p><p>“You can barely open a door,” Derek says back. It’s just as flat, and the two statements overlap each other.</p><p>“Okay, and you’re naked,” Stiles says pointedly, turning back as if to face Derek then quickly locking his head into a sideways position, just as pointed.</p><p>“Also worth mentioning there’s something stalking Beacon Hills and dismembering bodies,” Derek tacks on, and this is enough to have Stiles pulling back into a glance towards him.</p><p>“At 7-Eleven?” Stiles quips. “I think I’ll be alright.” He’s got his hand back on the door handle now, pushing down into it with the flat of his palm and Derek can see the carefully disguised cringe on his face as the door pops open. </p><p>“Just. Wait,” Derek growls, feeling the ache in his mouth as fangs demand to curl into the words. He’s dropping the towel next to wrench a set of clothes on. Dressed, he doubles back to the door where Stiles stands frozen in the open frame. </p><p>“This seems a tad excessive,” Stiles says, sounding slightly pained, though he still steps aside to let Derek move into the hall outside.  “Remind me why you feel it’s necessary to escort me to a convenience store?”  </p><p>“Because the last time I let you go off by yourself you ended up lacerated and bound to a tree,” Derek snips, and Stiles drops further back to let Derek shoulder open the door to the stairwell. </p><p>“Don’t victim blame, it’s not a good look,” Stiles calls as he hurries after him, Derek already taking the steps two at a time. </p><p> </p><p>The corner store is expectedly deserted, the fluorescent lights glaring blandly overhead. Derek idles through the aisle while Stiles picks things off the shelves. He’s making a point to not ask for assistance with holding his considerable haul and Derek doesn’t offer any, though he does scoff as Stiles deposits the armload onto the counter with a loud clatter. </p><p>Catching one of the multiple cans that try to roll off onto the floor, Derek pauses to frown at the listed ingredients. <i>Caffeine, taurine, glucuronolactone...</i> </p><p>“You really drink this shit?” He asks unimpressed. </p><p>“Cheaper than a coke habit,” Stiles replies easily, pocketing his card with a slight struggle. </p><p>It’s up close, next to Stiles in the too-bright and timeless blare of the store lights that Derek can see the real restrictions of Stiles’ movements. The predator housed in Derek’s skull retaliates against being coaxed back down beneath the surface and it fixates now on the stiff hold of Stiles’ shoulders. His posture is held like something's been jabbed into the small of his back and his shoulder blades, forcing him upright with swollen ligaments, and a residual bolt of anger runs through Derek at the reassessment. </p><p>The loose hook of his wrist barely grasping the plastic bag has Derek noting that Stiles can’t make a fist, doubting he could even curl his fingers more than forty five degrees. The skin is still stained a swollen tissue pink, but Stiles still beats him to the door of the shop, lifting his free hand to press limply against the push tab. </p><p>Derek intercepts before Stiles can force any effort into the movement. Peeling Stiles’ hand off the metal with his own fingers, Derek steals a few small dregs of pain from the flesh before swinging the door open himself. </p><p>Stiles allows it with a huff of mild annoyance. It turns into a small noise of surprise when Derek doesn’t remove his fingers once they’re back outside, but instead circles them around Stiles’ wrist. </p><p>The protest drains out of him quickly at the prospect of relief and Stiles allows Derek to lead the way back to the building. They’re shrouded in the tail end of the night on the sidewalk, their point of contact burning focus in the form of pain into Derek’s veins, and soaking something more pliant into Stiles. </p><p>It’s not a complete sensation. It’s begrudging and scattered, wanting to turn into something more. Derek can feel the declination of the moon inside his mind, the foundation of the transformation finally breaking to pieces, leaving him with the remnants of exhaustion and decay.</p><p>The straggling feeling that remains in its wake is the same one that had tried to take form around Derek in the woods, his head trapped between Scott and Isaac sprinting through the trees, his thoughts dragging behind, chained to the unseen shapes of Boyd and Erica.  </p><p>That <i>almost</i> feeling, the one that strings along like <i>pack</i> in Derek’s mind, and this is what narrates their path back to the loft. The pavement and the edges of buildings are painted low in breaking shadows as the night begins to fall away from the city streets.</p><p> </p><p>Back inside, Stiles drops back onto the couch, flipping the police scanner to active. Derek isn’t halfway through a sentence before Stiles is interrupting him violently. </p><p> </p><p>“Shut up, shut up,” Stiles hisses suddenly, starting to wave an arm towards Derek in emphasis but dropping the motion as pain seems to seize back through the limb. Stiles’ body locks into a rigid state of hyper-focus as he fine-tunes the dial and stares unblinking into the speaker as if his eyes would be able to decipher the static rippling in between the words. </p><p><i> “...reports of a large animal at the south point trail - ”</i> Derek winces as a clatter of static shrieking cuts into a new transmission. <i>“10-91 at south point, no further details at this point.”</i>  </p><p>The scanner seems to jolt then, leaping into chaotic action with constant choppy blocks of garbled noise that Stiles has been struck into stillness by.</p><p>
  <i>“ - witness stating something jumped out in front of a car near highway seven - ”</i>
</p><p>
  <i>“10-91d, requesting animal control - ” </i>
</p><p>
  <i>“Ditto that 10-91d, I’m at the junction now - ”</i>
</p><p><i>“Officer, did you say 10-91d </i>junction?”</p><p>
  <i>“I need an officer to the scene for a 10-62c - ”</i>
</p><p>
  <i>“Got a potential 597 - ” </i>
</p><p><i>“Potential 10-91V - ”</i> </p><p>“Jesus, okay, this is it,” Stiles says in a small lull between the clipping voices. He whips his head around to find Derek staring back with dark focus, eyes boring unvoiced questions into him.  </p><p>“That’s uh,” Stiles wheels back around, adjusting on the edge of the couch to move closer to the table, leaning in towards it like the radio waves are tangled around his form and wrenching. “That’s all animal sightings, dead ones found, they’re taking a report from someone.”</p><p><i>“I need a 10-59 at the abandoned distillery,”</i> the scanner drones out next, and Derek nods his chin sharply towards it.</p><p>“That’s on the other side of the entry point where the hunters left their truck. What’s a 10-59?”</p><p>“Security check,” Stiles recites, then falters. “Oh, oh shit, if they’re checking that area do you think they’re going to find...what you guys found?” </p><p>“Depends on whether what they find at the distillery gives them reason to search the woods.” </p><p>“Think you could get the keys to the truck?” Stiles asks next. “Move it someplace else while they’re investigating?” Derek looks back dubiously.</p><p>“Considering there was about a mile between a foot and the leg it was originally attached to, I’m going to guess finding a set of keys would be a long shot.” Stiles stares blankly at the scanner for a moment before blinking himself out of the trance. </p><p>“Right,” he says thinly. Next, he seems to combat the images attempting to solidify in his mind by getting lost in the scanner waves. As the reports continue to flood in the distraction solidifies too, with Stiles nodding along to the incomprehensible codes like it’s his first language. </p><p>
  <i>“Copy that 10-59, patrol car 7 on our way.”</i>
</p><p>
  <i>“Any followup on that 10-91V?” </i>
</p><p><i>“10-91V not confirmed,”</i> comes the reply. </p><p>“What’s a 10-91V?” Derek asks. </p><p>“You’re a 10-91V,” Stiles says back automatically, shifting his eyes away from the scanner to clarify - “dangerous animal.” </p><p>Derek watches then as Stiles reaches to the table to try to work the pull tab on a can, finally sighing heavily enough at the sight of the useless fumbling that Stiles caves and holds it out towards him. He still won’t ask out loud, which Derek sniffs at without amusement before flashing a claw out to puncture through the perforated section of the can. </p><p>Slightly slack-jawed, Stiles stares at him for a moment, opening his mouth further like he’s about to comment but thinks better of it and just sips from the hole instead. </p><p> </p><p>By the time the sun has actually risen and Isaac emerges from his room Stiles is busy scribbling notes and translations from the still active scanner in stunted and unreadable shorthand and marking points on a map. </p><p>The length and contents of the night are settling in along the inner stitching of Derek’s skin, and the wet hiss of Stiles sucking a breath between his teeth in pain has him snapping as Isaac shoots a questioning glance between them from the hall. </p><p>“Put the pen down, moron,” Derek says in a fast lash.</p><p>“I’m <i>busy,”</i> Stiles snaps back, matching the energy and doubling the ferocity. </p><p>“No one is going to be able to read that,” Derek says. “I don’t think <i>you</i> can read that.” </p><p>“Well, no one else knows police code,” Stiles retorts in a bull-headed way, instantly betrayed by the pen spasming against the page and dropping from his uncoordinated grip.</p><p>“Here,” Derek says, clapping his hands onto Isaac’s shoulders and steering him towards the couch. “Isaac just volunteered to scribe.” </p><p>“I did?” Isaac says flatly, but follows through with the motion Derek pushed him with and drops agreeably onto the end of the couch. </p><p>Satisfied with the fight that leaves Stiles’ posture as he brandishes a pen out to a moderately bewildered Isaac, Derek gives in to the fatigue that’s nipping at his temples and retires to bed.</p><p> </p><p>The noise from the police scanner infects his sleep with sharp punches of restless chatter. </p><p>
  <i>He’s back in the woods, chasing the frequency, or else being herded by it like a narrowing trail of Argent’s emitters. </i>
</p><p>
  <i>There’s no sense of direction, no clues as to where he’s heading until he’s pulled to a flush stop by some other force and the trees around him seem to peel away from each other. </i>
</p><p>
  <i>One tree is left at the dead centre of his vision - vision that’s bending and blurring at the sides, red-tinted in the dream and Derek can taste blood. </i>
</p><p>
  <i>The tree is scoured with knots and holes, and at the base of the trunk the ground begins to shift. The sound of radio static explodes then, becoming the sound of tree roots twisting beneath the ground. The twisting, turning, scrape of the tree coughs out throughout the gap of crimson woods, and the rotation of the tree reveals an avulsed face, plastered to the hollow knot. </i>
</p><p>
  <i>The skinned shell of the hunter’s face stares at Derek with empty sockets. He can feel the shift pushing a grinning snout out through his own face, and all around the wind is howling and screaming through the woods. </i>
</p><p>
  <i>The ghost of the storm echoes through the hollow. It makes the tattered lips move, speak. </i>
</p><p>
  <i>The words come out in wet rattles of code and numbers, the static bleeding in between becoming soft gasps and infected whines that stick needles into Derek’s frontal lobe, twisting and writhing and forcing the wolf to the surface, demanding a reaction.</i>

</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>		⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸</p>
</div><p>Stiles is still up when Derek wakes in time for Scott to return that afternoon. The beta enters the loft with a smell locked around his clothes that leaves no mystery as to where he spent the rest of the night, and who he spent it with.</p><p>At the sound of the opening door Stiles jumps slightly, blinking somewhat manically as Scott enters the room.  </p><p>“Jesus, dude, how much Adderall have you taken?” Scott asks in greeting, concern turning the corners of his words almost apprehensive with judgement.</p><p>“Just a second dose, it’s not a big deal,” Stiles brushes off. His line of vision is scattering in a coarse pattern over the pages in front of him which are scattered in turn, Isaac sprawled beside him on the couch. </p><p>“Is that safe to combine with that much caffeine?” Scott asks dubiously. His eyes are drawing a fast line across the empty cans now lining the coffee table, and Stiles sighs tersely.</p><p>“If you can find someone who does this better without it, feel free to replace me,” Stiles says. There’s a tight cable winding around his words, taut and snapping. </p><p>“What have you found so far?” Scott asks. His voice is just as tight, strained into something polite again, and Stiles gives him a sharp look like he’s trying to decide if Scott’s just humouring him. </p><p>“Cops found tracks around this doghouse that were too big to belong to the dog,” Isaac chimes in, and Stiles launches off the tail-end of his words. </p><p>“The <i>ex</i>-dog, none of the dogs they found bore any resemblance to dogs after this thing got to them - and they’re taking molds and photos to send off to animal control.” </p><p>“Tracks as in animal tracks?” Scott asks, the word <i>animal</i> coming out delicately.</p><p>“No, tracks as in tire tracks,” Stiles replies with disdain. “They’re profiling a full-moon-fuelled vehicle that’s targeting pets.”  </p><p>“Could it be another unstable alpha like Peter?” Scott asks next, ignoring Stiles’ unhelpful dig of words and directing his question to Derek, standing idly in between the windowed wall and everyone else.</p><p>“Maybe,” Derek says begrudgingly. The thought of another alpha lurking around the edges of his territory itches in his mind like a fresh scab. But he can’t see the motive around the healing flesh of it. </p><p>The string of guts on the brambles, the stink of death littering the sprawling, looping paths through the trees doesn’t feel like <i>werewolf</i> to him. </p><p>“Could it be Peter?” Stiles asks suddenly, the flat scratch of his voice sounding almost lethal at the concept. </p><p>“No,” Derek says, cutting that notion down immediately. “I keep tabs on Peter. He’s not here.”</p><p>“You’re in close enough contact with him to be sure?” Scott asks, and Derek can feel the heat from the intensity of Scott’s gaze without looking at him. </p><p>“Family group chat,” Derek retorts, and Stiles pulls a hypocritical face at the sarcasm. </p><p>“It could be another alpha,” Scott says then, with so much finality in his voice that it pulls Derek’s attention back towards him. “The one the hunters were looking for.” </p><p>“Except it found them before they found it,” Isaac offers.</p><p>“What’s your plan?” Scott asks, and Derek pins him with a level gaze. </p><p>“Find it, and kill it.” </p><p>“We’re a few steps behind to be jumping straight to murder,” Scott says, lifting an unimpressed brow. </p><p>“Technically, too late for that,” Stiles says from the couch, and he grazes Derek with a look that’s not as appreciative as Derek was hoping it would be.</p><p>“You’re sounding awfully protective of something that just went on a gore-spree through the suburbs last night,” Derek deadpans. “Besides, the county’s whole police force is after it now. That’s as good as a death sentence as any.”</p><p>“You don’t even know what it is,” Scott says back argumentatively. <i>“Who</i> it is.” </p><p>“What are the chances that it’s actually just an animal this time?” Stiles throws in. “So many so-called animal attacks, statistically at some point there will be a genuine wild animal attack, right?” Scott and Derek both level him with an unamused and wordless stare and Stiles shrugs back to reviewing Isaac’s slightly more legible notes. “Wishful thinking.” </p><p>“There’s needs to be some code of morals, some kind of justice to this,” Scott says next, and Derek knows he’s not talking about <i>this time,</i> but rather the greater picture. All of this, and for a fleeting instance Derek is wondering if Scott still feels cursed, like his involvement is some strangling poison his body can’t push out. </p><p>“Whatever this thing is it didn’t seem to have any moral issue with strewing those bodies through the woods,” Derek says, too impatient to weigh out justice within his own mind.</p><p>“Bodies that you killed!” Scott says back. It’s incredulous, ensnared with a cold and rational intonation. </p><p>“I was protecting my - ” again the word <i>pack</i> flares up in Derek’s mind like a blistering sore “ - territory,” he redirects almost seamlessly. Some griping, juvenile voice in the back of his mind is desperate to tack on <i>they started it,</i> and he grits his teeth together instead, wondering why he feels the need to justify his actions to Scott at all. </p><p>“You can’t just charge in set to kill everything that opposes you,” Scott redirects to Derek. The slow and rational part has won the battle, and the words come out well-formed to smooth out the remaining touches of the beta’s anger. It’s anger that Derek’s choices have cultivated. His leadership, his own temper. </p><p>“I take it you have a better plan?” Derek says, putting minimum effort into concealing the combative edge of his tone. “You can’t extend this self-righteous brand of being humane towards things that don’t possess any humanity.”</p><p>“We don’t even know what it is,” Scott says back. It’s slow and level, and deadly. “What we do have is the blueprints of where it was last night,” he continues, gesturing to one of the many scattered pages on the coffee table.</p><p>“I’ll check out the area where the dogs were killed. You can investigate the distillery once the cops leave,” Scott finishes. There’s so much quiet authority in his tone that Derek is momentarily stunned by it.  </p><p>“You’re planning on going by yourself?” Derek asks, dousing Scott with a look that he’s hoping conveys his criticism with both the plan and the ease with which Scott commanded it.</p><p>“I’ll go with Allison,” Scott says, slinging his arms into his jacket and Derek thinks he catches a soft curl of her scent at the same time Scott says her name.  </p><p>“Mind if I join?” Isaac asks, standing up from the couch in the moment that Scott is turning for the door. </p><p>Derek’s eyes wash between them then, picking up the easiness with which Scott nods, and the relieved drop of Isaac’s shoulders.</p><p>Scott pauses before he leaves through the door, taking in the sight of Stiles left in the loft, and the empty cans and pages littering the table. </p><p>“Is this really the best thing while you’re still recovering?” Scott asks. </p><p>“Have fun picking around a bunch of dead dogs,” Stiles says with a mild shudder in lieu of gracing Scott with a real answer. Scott’s frown deepens with this, extending it to where Derek is standing. </p><p>Derek can feel some intrinsic meaning behind the look he’s being delivered - something that reads in his mind like <i>look after him,</i> and as Isaac shuffles restlessly beside Scott at the door, Derek does his best to return the same expression, albeit with a heavier glare.</p><p>The door clicks shut behind them then, leaving Derek feeling a little helplessly that Scott and Allison have their hands hooked around his beta, and that they’re tugging gently.</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸</p>
</div><p>In Scott and Isaac’s wake Derek resigns himself to the pull-up bar in the hall. Drilled and bolted into the support beam, the structure groans minimally as he enters the rhythm of hauling his bodyweight to the top of the bar and slowly inching it back down.</p><p>The mind to muscle connection is something bored into his flesh, a reclaiming of the self as the moon enters its waning stage, and Derek maintains the pace until his sense of time begins to sharpen, his nerves on fire with a mindless energy. </p><p>He can feel his headspace finally slipping into that fine line of focus when a frustrated growl from the couch has him pausing mid-rep, dropping back to the floor in time to turn and see Stiles painstakingly trying to flip the pages of a textbook. There’s simply no dexterity behind the movement, and Derek can practically taste the bubble of anger that bursts through the open space. </p><p>“Can I grab a shower?” Stiles asks. Derek can hear the near-fluid pace of his heart, and the endorphins releasing through his own body are honing in on the quiet details before him. The hair-thin tremor beneath the waterline of his eyes, the subtle scent of sleep-sweat, the uncomfortable hold of swollen fingers that seem to be desperate to tap out a pattern onto the nearest surface. Overwriting all of this is the smell of frustration smearing like charcoal across the room. </p><p>“Fine,” Derek says offhandedly. “Towels are under the sink.”</p><p>“Thanks,” Stiles says, launching off the couch and Derek tosses a clean shirt towards him as an afterthought before he disappears down the hall.</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸</p>
</div><p>When Stiles returns to the couch the first thing Derek notices is the change in his scent. It’s sharp, blotted, like the time spent behind the closed door had been agitated and coarse, with the water flow washing away the old grip of scents only to expose a fresh layer of frustration underneath.</p><p>The second thing Derek notices is the lack of bandaging covering Stiles’ wrists. The skin beneath is still flaring with swelling and discolouration. He’s drowning in the fabric of Derek’s shirt, and the skin that’s visible is raw and shining, like the water had stiffened the tissue up further. </p><p>As Derek watches, Stiles downs half of his next energy drink as if to combat whatever agitated state had taken the reins away from him. He follows this up with pulling a laptop from his bag to begin scouring through social media to piece together unofficial eyewitness accounts of what had happened. </p><p>Draining the can as he scrolls through twitter, his eyes keep flitting back to the notes Isaac had jotted down, comparing times and addresses. The depleted can is added to the growing line against the edge of the coffee table, and Stiles holds the next one out to Derek with an expectant look that sours into something darkly betrayed when Derek doesn’t offer his claws in response. </p><p>Stiles’ glare remains fixed in place as Derek stalks into the kitchen to pull a bottle of water from the multi-pack on the counter, coming back into the room to brandish it towards him on the couch. </p><p>Stiles blinks the venom out of his gaze as he accepts the bottle, pinning it uncomfortably between both palms, and Derek makes an approving sound that’s almost inaudible.   </p><p> </p><p>Derek can pinpoint the moment the energy drink hits him. </p><p>Stiles is partway through the water bottle scrolling through a twitter thread when a quiet uptick in his pulse pairs with the subtle shift in the line of his eyes across the computer screen - from a routine downward trek to a <i>swishing</i> diagonal, cutting through text like a blade. </p><p>Next he’s rattling out a new string of keywords into the search bar with a speed that contradicts the clumsy swollen hold of his fingers. This new set of words seems to strike gold, and Stiles hones in on the white glow of the screen. </p><p>The bend of his spine goes rigid as he leans up and in towards the table, his eyes locking with a sort of vigilance that Derek hadn’t seen him possess before.</p><p>When the rest of the fluids hit him, Derek can pinpoint that too. There’s a change to how Stiles distributes his weight in his seat, his knees splaying out a little further, his back arching slightly. His body finds ways to fidget even as his mind seems dead set, one tracked and obsessive with focus. The muscles in his calves begin jumping beneath the table like he’s playing a kick drum, alternating between which leg is jostling between beats. </p><p>The wolf crouched inside Derek’s mind is all at once alert and engaged, sniffing out the prey-like movements in the jump of muscle, the hands that can’t curl into fists. </p><p> </p><p>Five minutes tick by before Stiles is moving in a frustrated writhe on the couch and Derek’s sure he’s going to get up. But Stiles merely lurches up to jerk one leg under himself, the other knee bouncing violently, his eyes never leaving the screen. </p><p>Another ten minutes pass this way, Derek blatantly staring, Stiles too engrossed to notice. </p><p>Five different tabs are open and overlapping and Stiles is cruising through his cycle of clicking somewhat maniacally between each one when he’s suddenly wrenching his arm from the coffee table to press his hand tightly into his upper thigh. </p><p>“Fucking, <i>ow,”</i> Stiles mutters instantly, retracting his hand from his thigh to stiffly brush through the scroll bar. </p><p>Derek drops onto the couch beside him. It doesn’t garner any reaction, and neither does laying the flat of his palm against Stiles’ forearm. The skin the bandage had been covering is warm and conjuring up a belt of slow pain into Derek’s faint grip. </p><p>Derek breathes as the flow of pain tapers down, and he eases his hand away. Stiles’ focus is still entirely dedicated to the computer screen, his leg moving like a piston with the vibration leeching into Derek too. </p><p>“Stiles,” Derek says after another minute passes. Stiles’ pain has vanished into his own bloodstream, and the bright glow of the computer screen is reflected in Stiles’ eyes as he fidgets, reading under his breath. </p><p>“Hm?” Stiles says back a beat later. </p><p>“Go to the bathroom,” Derek deadpans. “You’re making me nervous.” Stiles’ hold on the scroll bar spasms then, and he glances at Derek, startled. </p><p>“What - oh.” Stiles seems to come back into his body then, as if just noticing the posture he’s twisted himself into. The next movement has him untwisting, standing up abruptly.</p><p>“Yeah, right,” he says, exiting the room just as quickly, leaving Derek feeling like he’s been struck with something dull and heavy. The ripple of energy prickling across his scalp isn’t nervousness though. But whatever it is refused to be named and Derek can’t make sense of it, so it gets banished back underneath. </p><p> </p><p>Derek drops back into his workout in Stiles’ brief absence, rotating out push ups for sit ups before leaping back to the pull up bar as fluidly as Stiles had been switching tabs.</p><p>Though that focused light refuses to come back to him. Instead Derek’s mind distorts, with the ghosts of his dreams harmonizing with his rampant churn of thoughts. </p><p>Echoing around it is Stiles’ voice, agitated and raw saying <i> you’re a 10-91V,</i> but the words come out as a choppy line of text in a dead man’s writing that reads <i> highly volatile, unstable.</i></p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>thanks for reading ~</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Hidden Sea Buried Deep</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>* incoming gore and incoming smut/kink *</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Derek can hear the somewhat dejected fall of Isaac’s footsteps in the building’s hall late that afternoon, and Derek swings the loft door open in time for his approach.</p><p>Tearing his attention away from his notes for a moment, Stiles frowns at the digital clock in the corner of his computer screen, seemingly disbelieving of the displayed time. </p><p>“Thought you were helping Scott and Allison,” Stiles says to Isaac as Derek closes the door behind them. </p><p>“They don’t really need my help for what they’re doing now,” Isaac replies easily, and there’s a beat before Stiles is laughing humourlessly. </p><p>“Of course,” Stiles mutters and Derek turns his attention back to Isaac.</p><p>“What did you find?” </p><p>“They had already moved most of it by the time we got there,” Isaac starts, his eyes sweeping through the empty air as he seems to relive the images. “But the fences had been shredded along the streets, and there was a ton of blood left along the back lawns and the gutters that they hadn’t hosed down yet.” </p><p>The last few lines of Isaac’s report paint a familiar picture of Beacon Hills. Law enforcement taping up the scene, shielding pedestrians and rubberneckers from the remnants of the carnage left behind - the<i> ‘dog soup,'</i> as Isaac eloquently described it. </p><p>“And that scent from the woods was there, too,” Isaac finishes. “Written all over the street, all over the fences and over the blood.” He pauses then, looking at Derek with a young and open expression that’s equal parts wonder and apprehension. “I got the feeling that it was...proud of itself.” </p><p>“That’s good,” Derek says with a nod, and Stiles sputters from the couch. </p><p>“How is that <i>good?”</i> </p><p>“It’s indicative of there only being one creature,” Derek says, tossing him a look that glances off his high-wired form. “One scent in the woods, one scent on the bodies...”</p><p>“One seasoning in the dog soup, got it,” Stiles says, attempting to throw some kind of agreeable hand gesture their way, but the movement disintegrates into a flinching pair of claws. “Ow.” </p><p>“That’s still not healed?” Isaac asks, and Derek can feel the etching line of blue eyes across his body as he comes to the couch to offer his palm to the stiff hold of Stiles’ forearm.</p><p><i>“Still,”</i> Stiles says, twisting the word in his mouth and pushing his wrist into Derek’s grip unconsciously. “It’s been less than a week. You forget what it’s like being human already?” </p><p>“You’re way too amped up to take seriously,” Isaac says, the picture of nonchalant as he drops into the armchair and reclines, stretching his arms above his head. “You should really let off some steam.”</p><p>“Oh yeah? And how do you propose I do that?” Stiles says, shooting a death glare at Isaac and lifting his damaged hands pointedly up from his lap in a crude implication. </p><p>Derek sinks his teeth into the flash of memory that comes crawling to him them - Stiles dripped with shadows on the couch, his face lax, his legs open. </p><p>He’s smacked out of this train of thoughts by the low sound of Isaac laughing. It’s friendly enough, albeit entirely unsympathetic. </p><p>As his own thoughts run rampant and unclear, the atmosphere shifts. It’s been riddled with pockets of chirping and static, tense ribbons of dread. Now some change of signal siphons through the air and Stiles seems tuned in to it, tightly wound with no room to spin out. </p><p>Some hardwired part of Derek’s brain has been taking note of this, and isn’t surprised when Stiles is dipping down the hall, reappearing a minute later wearing one of Isaac’s coats. </p><p>“Where are you going?” Derek asks as Stiles makes for the loft door and he turns on his heels to look back. </p><p>“Sheriff’s station,” Stiles replies. The sleeves of Isaac’s coat are too long for him, the choice now clearly intentional as the cuffs conceal the majority of his hands. “I’ll find out whatever they found at the distillery.” </p><p> </p><p>The sound of the door shutting is the tipping point for Derek to launch into an anxious <i>sick of waiting</i> state, the lines of his body all high strung with pent up energy. </p><p> </p><p>It’s an energy that runs restless and distracted as he picks up on a new set of footsteps coming down the building corridor and stopping at his door. He moves towards it, picking up the notes of perfume draped around Scott’s scent.</p><p> </p><p>He opens the door to Allison Argent. </p><p> </p><p>She’s standing perfectly composed, her stance almost formal, hands folded gently at her front. </p><p>It’s a gesture of complacency, no visible weapons on hand, but all Derek can see in the unexpected shape of her standing there is how she holds something between them, that carefully balanced glint in her eye that still reflects him as the enemy. </p><p>There’s a slight tilt to her posture - it’s the readiness to pull backward, to drop away from the door with a light spring if needed. </p><p>Faced with this, Derek pulls his own stance back into the loft, one arm crossing the door to invite her inside, and force her to step towards him if she chose to.   </p><p>She does, entering with both grace and wariness.</p><p> </p><p>“My father had reports of something in the woods before this happened,” Allison says plainly, and Derek bites down on the anger that tries to bubble up with the bluntly withheld information. </p><p>He doesn’t say <i>why didn’t you tell me,</i> doesn’t need to with that composed and formal wall of <i>I don’t trust you</i> that’s already an answer radiating from the press of Allison’s clothes.</p><p>Allison seems to pull all of this from the air between them instinctively, her eyes moving in small flashes across Derek’s face, piecing together the intricate language of his silence. She’s sharp, smart, and this reminder elicits a small stab of regret and dissatisfaction for how things stand. </p><p>“I wanted to be sure before I mentioned it to anyone,” Allison says. Even the pitch of her tone is careful, treading carefully around the wall of Derek’s defences. “But we pulled some images from the trail cameras in the preserve.” She’s reaching into the inside pocket of her jacket then. </p><p>Derek can feel his body tense up at the sight, feel the jump of muscle memory, and even as he clamps down on his reflex to fall into a protective stance he can see Allison watching him, cataloguing all of this cooly. </p><p>Her hand reappears holding a spread of green-hued photographs.  </p><p> </p><p>From behind them inside the loft, Isaac moves in to look from over Derek’s shoulder.</p><p>“So it is an alpha,” Isaac comments, taking in the dark shape that stands in layers of grit and grain in the photos. There’s no refusing the form of it. The tall gate of muscle lining the shoulders and neck of the creature in the woods, the glow of its eyes distorting the camera, the protrusion of its snout.</p><p>“Alphas can only take this form during a full moon, is that right?” Allison asks next, and Derek nods at her. </p><p>“I thought so,” she says, and Derek zeroes in on the sound of her nail tapping against the glossy finish of the photo laying on top. Her fingertip is held in an even underline of the date. </p><p>It’s a week before the full moon.</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸</p>
</div><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>Stiles returns shortly after Allison’s departure, their paths just missing each other.</p><p>“Someone - something - ” Stiles spouts off as soon as he’s through the threshold, “broke into the abandoned distillery. The officer on scene wrote it up as vandalism. Bunch of fresh tracks, though the giant hole torn in the wall definitely suggests supernatural.” </p><p>“What kind of tracks?” Derek asks, hearing Isaac rise to his feet behind him, drawn in by the new information.  </p><p>“Don’t think they were looking for animal prints since the other scenes hadn’t been officially reported yet, but they definitely found human ones,” Stiles says. “Shoes, at least,” he amends. </p><p>“Right,” Derek says, then turning to Isaac, “let’s go see what they missed.” </p><p> </p><p>“Can I come?” Stiles asks, and Derek turns back to review the hesitancy in his tone. Despite being dressed and closest to the door, there’s a held off quality to Stiles’ posture. It’s a few degrees off from a sulk, like he’s been confined to the loft as some kind of punishment instead of having only just returned. </p><p> </p><p>Derek presses down the automatic response that’s ushering its way out, saying <i>stay here, stay out of trouble, stay safe.</i> Instead he brushes past Stiles with a brief nod, leading the way out through the building.</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸ </p>
</div><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>The abandoned distillery sits at the curling end of a dirt road with the woods lapping at the outskirts. Nature seems hellbent on reclaiming the flat grey of the building and its walls made of stone and sheet metal.</p><p> </p><p>The Camaro comes to a coughing stop in the wet gravel as the road ends. Weeds stick up in itching lines all along the ditches running at both sides. </p><p>The storm has left thick pockets of mud in the holes and dips of the unmaintained road, and the distillery is in a matching state. </p><p>As Derek exits the car he is instantly aware of something he’s certain the responding deputy had neglected to mention in her report. It’s the electric wall of tension that raises the fine hairs along his arms and the back of his neck as he holds the gutted building in his gaze. </p><p>The unmistakable presence of another alpha - and it’s the hostility of this unseen presence that encases Derek now. </p><p> </p><p>“Jesus, that’s strong,” Isaac comments, and Derek feels the prickle of a short burst of pride when Isaac steps in closer towards him now in response to it. </p><p>“What is?” Stiles asks, inching into Derek’s shadow.</p><p>“The smell of whatever this thing is,” Isaac answers, and Derek juts in to clarify.</p><p>“It’s an alpha.” </p><p>“I thought alphas knew how to hide their scents,” Stiles says, and Isaac is frowning at Derek too.</p><p>“And those photos Allison had... you said alphas can only take that form during a full moon.” Derek picks up the frown too, moving towards the building as he answers.</p><p>“I know as much as you do,” Derek says. “But I also know that’s an alpha.” </p><p>There’s no room for doubt in the knotting flex of his muscles straining out at the notion of another alpha so recently <i>here.</i> It’s an unthinking reaction, not his choice or will but belonging to the wolf inside his skull. The wolf that’s reaching out with sharpened limbs to demand control of the rest of his body. </p><p> </p><p>Derek walks into the distillery first with Isaac picking up the rear and Stiles walking just too close between them both to be casual. </p><p> </p><p>The ground inside is coated with a fine dust, gravel and debris lining the outer walls and the small particles cling to the wet soles of their shoes from the mud outside. </p><p>Most everything inside the warehouse had been removed, either by the company when it had closed, or by scrappers and vandals in the years after. </p><p>A few broken chunks of machinery remain, some husks missing all their mechanical innards, the rest decaying in various stages of rust and rain damage. Above, the roof is filled with holes, and empty sockets line the floor. Here nature has already been at work reclaiming its space, and the smell of wet rot and vegetation mingles and disagrees with the other scents. The sting of iron, metallic and rich. And the hot-blooded musk of the alpha so strong it’s almost burnt, scouring Derek’s senses with a singeing unnamed threat.</p><p> </p><p>He’s stalking through the debris, bracing for this threat when what starts as a black spot in the peripherals of Derek’s vision becomes a barrelling body that leaps over the block of downed machines. </p><p>Derek has just enough time to fall into an action stance and bark out a warning before the thing collides with him.</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸</p>
</div><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>Clashing teeth latch on to his forearm immediately, snapping so feverishly to get a deeper grip that Derek has wrenched free almost as quickly as the jaws have touched him.</p><p>The alpha is in its engorged lunar shift - enormous, monstrous, the shape of an animal carved out of inflated muscle. The nightmarish predator form that wrote the name <i>lycanthrope</i> in jets of blood through ancient texts. There’s nothing else Derek can mistake it for, nothing he can compare it to. It’s the shape of Peter, of Deucalion, of every enemy that stalks his dreams and shudders a twisted temptation behind every mirror he looks into. </p><p> </p><p>There’s no time or room to ponder its existence as the alpha is rioting back towards him, uncaring of his claws and fangs all pointed and shining like blades whittled to open flesh and spear hearts and limbs. </p><p>Derek’s eyes are tunnelling in and with his next inhale all he can see are points of entry, hamstrings, arteries, lapses in balance.</p><p> </p><p>A swift growl from somewhere behind him signals what he can already feel happening. </p><p>A fresh vein of power slams like a drug into Derek’s bloodstream as Isaac shifts, heightening the swell of muscle and honing senses that rush out and grip onto the other alpha.</p><p>But the beta’s shift pulls the alpha’s attention like the cape of a matador and it’s charging, hauling past Derek, ignoring the sting of his claws marking deep grooves through its skin.</p><p>Tufts of dark fur fly off from Derek’s claws as the alpha reaches out for Isaac, its front limbs outstretched as it leaps through the air.</p><p>The sound of impact and Isaac’s outcry are buried beneath the sopping sound of tearing flesh, the heavy, hungry, moaning breathing of the alpha as it spins and glides its claws through his guts. </p><p>Derek is there in the same heartbeat, sinking the hooks of his claws into the back of the creature’s neck and ripping backwards with enough force to hear the vertebrae crunch and compress. </p><p>The creature goes sprawling onto the floor, blood slinging off in ropy flecks, thick and dark, but the body doesn’t stay down. </p><p>It’s back up before Derek has the chance to wind up a killing blow. Its heavy haunches bunch up, preparing to spring forward, still lined up with where Isaac has fallen to the floor. </p><p>Derek can smell its blood, his blood, Isaac’s. All of it collecting and running in red spatters and uneven pools congealing in the dust, and his vision has gone red too. </p><p> </p><p>He slams into the thing’s path, denying it access to his beta, his teeth finding the tendons at its throat, though even as he tears in and his claws dig deep through the walls of its torso he can feel the flesh clinging and sticking itself back together. It happens incredibly fast, too fast for Derek to comprehend even as his own flesh is folding itself whole again.</p><p> </p><p>Derek shreds its chest cavity twice over but the alpha’s form carries on regenerating like the wounds aren’t even registering. </p><p>It sticks its own claws into Derek with a strange motion then - inches of claws flowing like tai chi, arcing like a curious gesticulation. These claws hook through his tissue, pull him close. </p><p>So close that as he’s embedded in the creature’s grip the roar that splinters from his chest shakes spittle and frothy strings outwards from its snout. The breath spouting from its opened snarling mouth is hot, soaking and rotting and Derek’s thinking <i>roadkill, vomit, sewage,</i> the words chanting through his mind as he bites down into jugular, ripping his claws with intent towards the eyes, the lungs, the underbelly of the beast. </p><p>Derek roars around a mouthful of throat - the sound swings upwards, howling, challenging, combative and pure. He’s torn out a third of the alpha’s neck, and even as he looks at it - his eyes are fully red now, blotting out everything that isn’t carnage, that isn’t <i>victory</i> - the gaping hole is spurting, glueing itself back together. </p><p> </p><p>But it’s wounded. And making a strangled sound that sounds like it’s trying to howl back its own song. Derek doesn’t take the time to hear it. His mind is empty, gone, tied outside to a post, and the wolf is forefront, starved and focused. </p><p> </p><p>His next motion sends him face-deep into the creature’s neck for more. The scent here is overpowering. A pungent wall that lunges down his throat, smokey and spiced with sweat and diseased heat. </p><p>When Derek tears out another chunk of meat and spits it frothing to the ground the alpha finally staggers back, a spasming sway locked into its limbs like it’s made in stop motion. </p><p>Derek advances, all rippling muscle, as fluid as the night and the alpha - four-legged and spotted with gasping holes and threading tissue - turns to run. </p><p>It jumps away with a shocking wave of force for something Derek’s sure should be dead four times over. Leaping away into the hollow of the distillery, it slams hard into something solid that crumples to the ground.</p><p>Next comes the shrieking sound of metal ripping open, and the pale glow of twilight is stuffing into the warehouse through the jagged hole torn through the sheet of wall.</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸</p>
</div><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>As suddenly as the threat has come on it’s vanished too. Back into the wall of woods outside the warehouse, but Derek’s body hasn’t caught up. It’s still revelling and ruining in the thrill of combat, missing out on any signals that aren’t shaped into the form of tooth and terror.</p><p>Terror remains at the scene, riffing up through the air like highway flares, and Derek follows them. </p><p>He’s taken furious and fierce to where Stiles is flat out on the ground, and the sound of the alpha slamming into something solid is echoing through Derek’s mind, aggressive and pounding. </p><p> </p><p>Stiles is conscious, though fighting to breathe and Derek assesses him with the blade of his vision, following with his hands in coarse strokes up his body. </p><p>“Fine,” Stiles gets out with a struggle as Derek paws his head and chest up off the ground. “Fine, I’m fine.” </p><p>There’s a moment in which Derek can’t believe it, but Stiles wrenches himself the rest of the way up, the air punched out from his chest, but no blood or punctures are waiting to be found. </p><p> </p><p>It’s Isaac who’s decidedly not fine, Derek latching on to the quickened pulse and the fresh scent of his blood. </p><p>He’s lucid though, and wrestling both the shift and pain off from his face as Derek kneels beside him. The scent of blood is stronger from the ground, and Derek lifts the bottom of Isaac’s shirt, searching for the source. </p><p>His hands reveal a wicked sight. Blood is being spat out from where the alpha had clawed up everything within reach - and they reached deep, with digging fervour.</p><p>“Why isn’t he healing?” Stiles demands frantically. “Is he dying? Derek is he <i>dying?”</i> and Isaac delivers Stiles a withering glare from the ground.</p><p>“He’ll heal,” Derek says, grim but assuring as Isaac’s face contorts back from neutral with a twist of pain. “It’s from an alpha; it’ll just take longer.” </p><p>“That thing wasn’t an alpha,” Isaac spits out, writhing in his attempt to get back on his feet, and Stiles dances in to dip an unsure shoulder in to support some of his weight. They both wince violently at the strained contact and Derek pulls Isaac’s other arm over his own shoulder. </p><p> </p><p>In the parking lot Derek props Isaac up against the side of the car. His legs waver for a moment, shoes catching in the mud, whole body shaking with the effort of staying upright.  </p><p>“I’m alright,” Isaac says next, though it’s gritted out. “I’ve had worse.” Unconvinced, Derek moves in to help him pull his massacred shirt off over his head. </p><p> </p><p>The gouges running across his torso are rounded slashes, still bleeding though congealing too in fat clots. From beside them Stiles makes an ailing sound and the pain Derek is able to soak from Isaac’s skin is glowering, sticky. </p><p>Isaac’s eyes are yellow, shining like coins and Derek feels his own flaring out to sympathize, red to match the blood that’s oozing from the beta, staining Derek’s hands and all of their clothes. </p><p> </p><p>He pops the trunk of his car, shuffling past the generator and sets of starter cables for a case of bottled water, and he slashes the caps off several. When he douses Isaac’s wounds the beta makes a sharpened groan that grinds down into pained breathing. The water runs pink onto the mud where the earth greedily soaks it in. </p><p>At their side, Stiles is pacing from foot to foot, his face pale aside from two bright spots of colour on his cheeks, and his eyes are wide and unseeing. After easing Isaac into the backseat of the car, Derek switches his attention onto Stiles, the glass-like and queasy expression on his face.</p><p>“You going to throw up in my car if we leave now?” Derek asks through too-sharp teeth, and Stiles blinks, rocking to a standstill, kicking the back tire restlessly. </p><p>“No, sir,” he says with too much of a tremor in his voice to fill Derek with confidence. Next Stiles is snatching a bottle from the open case and inhaling half of it with one swallow. </p><p>“God, fuck,” Stiles gasps wetly. “No, no I’m good.” </p><p>Derek eyes him warily, the sway of his gaze being dragged back to the empty warehouse behind them, the torn wall of metal, the line into the trees. </p><p> </p><p>The adrenaline from the encounter is just getting started in his veins, the tempo picking up into something horrendous and quaking, and Derek is shoving Stiles back into the car in the next moment, slamming the door and forcing the ignition to life.</p><p> </p><p>The drive back to the loft takes too long, the streets elongating and traffic lights looping reds. Just as red, the smell of blood swirls and sings from the backseat, Isaac’s breathing a dry weight through the confined space. </p><p>In the passenger seat Stiles sits uncomfortably tense, his hands splayed out on his knees which have picked up a bouncing stutter. Beside him, Derek’s grip on the steering wheel is just shy of crushing the vinyl.</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸</p>
</div><p><br/>
<br/>
</p><p>Derek kicks in the door to the building, feeling the fury really settle in as the resounding crash slams through his ears. He supports most of Isaac’s weight from the parking lot up to the loft with the beta’s arm curled around his neck like it’s a lifeline.</p><p>Derek is finely aware of Stiles following with graceless fluidity, skirting inside behind them with a fear-pulse coming off his frame like shockwaves. </p><p> </p><p>Inside Derek lays Isaac onto the beta’s bed as delicately as the barbarity still running his system allows. </p><p>“You’re going to be alright,” Derek says, feeling the snarl that’s so desperate to line his words, wrestling it down to something rounded, calm. </p><p>“Yeah,” Isaac says, delivering something just feigning calm back to him. “I’ve been here before.” </p><p>Derek exhales slowly. The sight of Isaac bloodied and battered is too familiar to be comforting, but Derek tries to draw some form of comfort from the sound of his pulse, steadying now. Familiar too is the quiet and assured stare that’s fixed on Derek now. </p><p>Trust lives disquietly where he’s held in Isaac’s gaze. In turn, Derek feels a stab of just how quickly the beta has grown up under his own gaze. Grown up violently, and surrounded by that same shade of violence. </p><p> </p><p>There’s no fuss or complaints from Isaac as Derek wipes up the blood and compresses the gouges with a towel that quickly flowers from white to red against his hands. </p><p>Isaac’s breathing thins and startles at the pressure, but it catches back up as Derek holds it there. </p><p>He knows that Isaac’s tied himself to his anchor when the beta settles back into the mattress. He hopes in turn that he’s serving his role better than that anchor.  </p><p> </p><p>In the time it takes Derek to leave the scene to collect a thick wad of gauze and bandaging, there’s enough shine back in Isaac’s eyes that it illuminates Derek’s return. As he dresses the gashes Isaac lets out a breath that returns to him stronger and that hidden band that ties them together feels braided, enforced and stabilizing. </p><p>“Rest,” Derek says, the crackling wave of alpha power courses through his vocal cords and turns the word to a command. </p><p>“Don’t have to tell me twice,” Isaac says with a sigh laced with exhausted pain, and Derek’s hands swarm in. First they drink the pain that’s coating Isaac’s skin like a sheet of sweat, then they grab the bloodstained clothes from the bottom of the bed as he leaves the room. </p><p> </p><p>Isaac’s bloodied shirt stays clenched in Derek’s hands as he paces into the bathroom. The slashes torn through the fabric are jagged, like the claws that ripped it had changed their mind and direction halfway through the motion. Derek throws it to the bottom of the shower then adds his own a second later. </p><p>Facing the mirror above the sink Derek grips the sides of the basin, attempting to ground himself back inside the room. He can feel the muscles struggling beneath his skin, jacked up with dark energy from the fight and so eager to shift back into it. </p><p> </p><p>The smell of blood and foreign alpha is permeating the room. It’s trapped beneath his nails too, still curling and craving to fully transform into claws. He doesn’t let them, wills them into a human stillness by plunging his hands under the running tap. </p><p> </p><p>The shock of cold water against his skin is most welcome, and rivulets of blood trickle down into the basin. Outside the door Derek can hear Stiles pacing in short bursts. The tight movements of stiff legs and anxious turns is something the rush of the water won’t drown out in Derek’s ears, and he wrenches the door back open. </p><p> </p><p>Stiles freezes under the shadow of Derek’s gaze. His hands come to jump together and twist in front of him, eyes shining in the dark of the hall, so bright and wide that Derek’s certain his vision is going blurry around the edges. He knows his own vision is trapped in hyper-focus, his senses still running in that survival kind of overdrive. </p><p>In front of him he can see Stiles trapped in a similar state. His body seems incapable of any sort of stillness. He’s rocking from one foot to the other, bouncing with an unsettling rhythm. The adrenaline that had flooded his system is now blotting out unevenly, shock and terror and the racing gait of his heartbeat attacking Derek’s mind from the hall. </p><p>Atop those things - the terror, the heartbeat - is the coarse wild scent of the other alpha. The stink of its fur is written into Stiles’ clothes and it whispers to Derek’s overloaded senses with a fierce challenge. </p><p> </p><p>“Can I get in there for a second?” Stiles asks, interrupting the shadow of Derek’s thoughts, and suddenly the pacing and restless dance of his body snaps into place in that strangely custom-cut section of Derek’s mind.</p><p>Derek is about to step to the side, to depart into the loft when something stops him, forces him to drink in the sight of Stiles in front of him.</p><p> </p><p>There’s a wet oval of Isaac’s blood that has seeped into the side of his shirt - Derek’s shirt - and Derek’s eyes search lower, finding more blood and spatters of mud from the lot outside the distillery dotting up the legs of Stiles’ jeans. </p><p>There’s a faintly constructed idea wrestling inside Derek’s mind at the sight of the state he’s in. Something about containing the blood, to not drag the scent of another alpha further into his home. It’s something that might be solved with some detergent and a washing machine, but Derek’s mind isn’t thinking right, is blurred and thick with growling urges and the compromise his head comes up with is to grab Stiles and drag him into the shower stall. </p><p> </p><p>Stiles’ back hits the tiled wall and his mouth drops open at the sudden action, his stare interrupted with a set of rapid blinks.</p><p>“Hurt you?” Derek asks flatly. Once he’s said it he’s not sure if he means himself or the other alpha.</p><p>“I’m alright,” Stiles says, a bit too quickly. It’s hard to believe with the visual of dark bloodstains on his clothes, and it’s harder for Derek to resist the urge to sink his claws out. So he doesn’t resist, flashing out his claws and hooking the edges of his fingers beneath the fabric of Stiles’ shirt and he pulls.</p><p>The cotton tears like wet paper, falling to the shower floor in ribbons. Unshielded now, the scent kicking up from Stiles’ skin is the sharp tug of damp sweat, but the smell of the thing that had attacked them - had slashed its claws into Isaac’s chest, had spilled the blood of Derek’s pack right in front of him - still sits at the forefront of Derek’s senses. It’s musky, dark and <i>animal</i> and Derek wants it gone. Removed from his home and the body before him.  </p><p>Derek flattens Stiles’ body to the tiled wall of the shower with his own, burying his face in the crook of his shoulder. </p><p>“I can smell it on you,” Derek says, breathing the words into Stiles’ skin.</p><p>The scent of Isaac’s blood is streaming through his nasal cavities, competing for space and reaction with the scent of fear blearing off from Stiles’ skin, mixed with the overwhelming and challenging scent of the alpha that had caused it. The blood and the fear. The threat that had run off into the night, and Derek stops fighting the urge to shift, lets his fangs slip out and face contort, and he snarls. It’s at the retreating shape of the monster into the woods, the unprovoked violence against his pack, the tremble beneath Stiles’ skin, pressed to the wall beneath him. </p><p>“Derek?” Stiles says carefully. His voice is quiet, almost reverent. </p><p>“Can smell how it wanted to kill you, both of you,” Derek says through his teeth. </p><p>“But we’re okay,” Stiles says back. He doesn’t move when Derek slithers clawed hands to his waist, popping off the button off his jeans and tugging at the material. Stiles stays frozen while Derek works the jeans down his hips. He’s furious at the scent on his clothes, the spilled blood that’s staining the skin beneath and Stiles seems to clue in as Derek is tracing his claws over the smear of Isaac’s blood across his ribs. </p><p>Stiles steps out of his jeans, toeing them towards the pile of bloodied clothes atop the drain then shooting a gaging look back at Derek like he’s trying to appease him.</p><p>“It’s okay,” Stiles says quietly and there’s a flicker of something relaxing in Derek’s mind that the wolf sinks him into. He’s growling again without really meaning to, pushing his face back into the damp skin at Stiles’ shoulder. </p><p>Stiles moves his arms up in an almost protective gesture before laying his hands onto the rounded muscle at Derek’s shoulders. There’s not much deftness in his grip, and no force to the movement, and that makes Derek angrier. Still sore and swollen from the last time he had been attacked, and it’s something he wants to shave off from Stiles’ form. </p><p>He moves a hand to encircle Stiles’ bicep then, searching for the traces of pain still sunk into the muscle there. When he finds it and begins drawing it in, Stiles’ hands slip down from his shoulders, riddling his back with warmth.  </p><p>“It’s okay, we’re okay,” Stiles says again, repeating it like he’s trying to convince himself and when Derek snarls again Stiles doesn’t flinch away, just holds onto him carefully. There’s still a nervous bounce in one of his legs, and Derek zeroes in on the quiet struggle housed within his body. The light muscles of his abdomen are gently straining too as he’s pressed to the wall, patiently waiting out the onslaught of Derek’s checks.</p><p>Derek noses in to scent him again, feeling the last dregs of pain leaving Stiles’ system, and he’s about to draw back, to recede and leave him be when he presses his mouth to Stiles’ collarbone in an afterthought. </p><p>He doesn’t push his teeth into the motion. It’s just an absentminded mouthing, wolfish affection that’s trying to say everything his mind can’t string together. <i>I’m glad you’re safe, I’m angry you weren’t, I’m happy we’re all back,</i> when Stiles makes a soft sound that slams straight into the core of Derek’s stomach.</p><p> </p><p>It’s short, a closed-lipped whimper that’s both desperate and relieved, and the wolf explodes beneath Derek’s skin, won’t let him release his grip. </p><p> </p><p>There’s a weightless pause imposed into the room then, a standing still of time where Derek just holds him there, pinned against the wall until Stiles isn’t able to hold quite so still, and his next squirm brushes their bodies together. </p><p> </p><p>It’s an abrupt touch, unintentional and Stiles wheels himself back in the same moment. But Derek locks in on the contact, presses back in towards it. He can feel a light pulse between them that isn’t Stiles’ heartbeat, and it’s the wolf that seeks it out, wriggling out from the cove of Stiles’ neck to search between their bodies. </p><p>The wolf ruling his mind doesn’t question whether it’s from fear, or the adrenaline still seeping through Stiles’ system. The wolf just sighs at the sight of the erection pressing meekly against the fabric of Stiles’ briefs.</p><p>The expanding scent of arousal envelopes Derek’s senses then, heightened and tuning in with a greedy hunger. He can smell embarrassment too, sweet with its freshness, but it’s irrelevant, encouraged, because the wolf is hard too and he communicates this by pressing his thigh towards Stiles’ groin in silent offering. </p><p>The breath Stiles sucks in is sudden and surprised. He isn’t saying no, isn’t saying <i>anything</i> and Derek presses his face in closer, painting him with his scent, scraping the lower line of his teeth across the arch of Stiles’ neck, and Stiles finally responds with a shuddering exhale, pushing forward to touch their hips together. </p><p>“Fuck, <i>fuck</i> Derek, is this okay? Is this - are you - ” and Derek cuts off the wet ramble with a slow buck of his hips, drawing back far enough to see the wild shine in Stiles’ eyes, uncentered and bright, like part of his mind is still bracing to run from the thing in the woods. </p><p>“Okay,” Derek says back, a malformed response that’s whittled down by the fangs in his mouth, but Stiles seems to drop into it. </p><p>“O-okay,” Stiles breathes out. They’re close enough that Derek can feel the vapour from his voice stick against his skin.</p><p>There’s heat radiating from the quake of Stiles’ abdomen, drawing into the hard line of Derek’s body and locking him in place. </p><p>“Fuck,” Stiles chokes out again, this time a whine that propels him forwards by the waist, plastering a wiry wall of friction against Derek’s crotch, who delivers it back with more force. </p><p>Pawing down the shaking line of Stiles’ body, Derek sinks a hand into the meat of his thigh and lifting it up. Stiles stumbles at the change of balance, bending his knee to hook around Derek’s waist to save himself from toppling over. </p><p>Derek attacks the new angle, grinding into Stiles with the cradle of his hips dragging a circular motion that has Stiles gasping instantly, curving up into it, and a sound pulls out of Derek that spreads in a vibration into Stiles’ chest.</p><p>The flaring scent of arousal that bleeds out from Stiles next is brighter, molten gold and mixing with Derek’s too. </p><p>It’s better, richer - the colour of his own scent drowning out the other alpha’s and reclaiming the air covering Stiles’ skin and that panicked, high strung aura. </p><p>Derek dives into it. The aggression that’s been holding tight to the forefront of his mind loosens now, slipping down through his body like hot oil and steering his hips into the open quiet tremble of Stiles’ body. </p><p>Stiles embraces it eagerly. Derek can feel even through the layer of his jeans how overloaded Stiles is with his own senses. Every inch of skin is alight with energy, burning hot and arching out towards Derek, desperate to be touched, to ground to something. </p><p> So Derek grounds him, pinning the small of his back to the tiled wall and Stiles hisses at the cool bite of it, pushing the pads of his thumbs into the meat of Derek’s shoulders where the fingers can’t quite curl to dig in. </p><p>Lifting a hand to the nape of Stiles’ neck Derek leans into the hot fold of his body, winding back to drag his groin along the hopeful arch of Stiles’ erection. </p><p>Derek’s claws are out as he grips Stiles’ neck, and while he’s careful not to prick the skin he wonders - a flash in some dark cave of his mind - what memories he could drown in there, what images and senses would fill him up.</p><p>Instead of dipping his claws into the firm base of Stiles’ neck Derek rolls his hips again, painting a slip of friction against Stiles’ crotch and narrating the motion with a pleased growl that sneaks out of him. </p><p><i>“Nnn - ah,”</i> Stiles’ moan disintegrates into a breaking cry, his hips jerking forwards in a series of quick stutters and Derek can feel the sudden hot bolt of Stiles’ orgasm against the spread of his hip. </p><p>The swirling blend of pheromones and arousal are burning away the cloying scent of fear, and Derek pulls his hand away to run his fingers along the quivering line of Stiles’ clothed cock, dipping beneath the elastic to trace a smearing trail through the mess.</p><p>The motion is astounded, wondrous, and just above Derek can feel the tight swell of bladder and he presses the pads of his fingers into Stiles’ abdomen without thinking.</p><p><i>“Ugh,”</i> Stiles groans, hot against Derek’s ear. There’s another twitching spasm from his spent cock between them and Derek reaches down to free his own from the confines of his pants. He jerks the fabric away, nosing the head of his cock between Stiles’ open legs and Stiles groans again, this time dropping his head to fall against Derek’s shoulder. </p><p>Stiles shivers as Derek slides his fingers into the mess inside his briefs, coming back out again to coat his own cock and rubbing into the soft and flushing skin of Stiles’ inner thigh. The friction slips beautifully and Derek nips down over Stiles’ collarbone where the skin is turning pink to meet his mouth. </p><p>The rocking of Derek’s hips pins into a rhythm then, one that wraps around his body, carrying Stiles’ with it. The distressed squirm of Stiles’ body made blasé in the wake of his orgasm twists and grinds against Derek’s form and the alpha buckles into it, chasing the next string of minutes around the clock as if hunting them for sport. </p><p>The growing heat and pressure in Derek’s body swells, feeding off of the subtle writhe returning to Stiles’ body as he regains his autonomy. This feeling is only enhanced by the growingly needy sounds carried under each breath as Stiles slides against the press of Derek’s cock, and Derek slides right back, his movements quickening. </p><p>His grip on Stiles’ thigh slips over to the front, pinning him back with the spread of his palm against his stomach and Stiles gasps sharply, trying to clamp his legs together, though the movement is distorted by the wall of Derek’s waist between them. The tight squeeze of frantic muscle around him has Derek groaning too, pressing harder against Stiles’ skin and rutting into the pressure.</p><p>“F-fuck, Derek, you’re going to make me - ” and Derek delivers a hungry open-mouthed growl to Stiles’ throat, the vibration cutting the stream of words off immediately. </p><p>Stiles’ pulse is racing, hot and heavy against Derek’s mouth and he pushes his tongue down into the jump of it. The taste of salt and arousal bursts like stars across Derek’s senses, with Derek mutely noticing that Stiles is wrestling for purchase and not pushing him away. </p><p>The rest of what he’s noticing in an enhanced, obsessive manner is the burning heat at every point they’re touching. Derek’s mouth against bared throat, the lock of Stiles’ arms around his back, the flush weight of Stiles’ stomach beneath Derek’s palm. He presses into this flush weight again, flat and firm as his tongue chases that bolting pulse.</p><p>Stiles tries to say something else but the break in his voice doesn’t allow it, and there’s only a tight whine and the shudder in his thighs as warning before a hot wetness is spreading from his crotch. </p><p>It soaks through the fabric, the grain of Derek’s jeans, flooding down both of their legs as Derek is coming hard with the cusp of his cock catching on the clothed swell of Stiles’ ass, nudging into the wet fabric.</p><p>Derek doesn’t move, panting hard into the tight line of Stiles’ neck until the flow is slowing then stopping completely. Stiles hasn’t moved an inch, holding himself rigid, not even breathing and Derek can’t smell the other alpha at all. </p><p> </p><p>The wolf has left his features in the wake of his release, and Derek slowly lowers Stiles’ thigh, dropping his foot back down onto the shower floor. </p><p>Derek reaches out to twist the water on, and the breath Stiles was holding in crushes out of him.</p><p>The water comes out with a hissing force that hits Derek with a block of cold spray. He doesn’t mind, turns his back into it, and the change of posture gives him a clear view of Stiles’ face.  </p><p> </p><p>The scent of emotion coiling off from Stiles is blending humiliation with aching relief, but there’s something heavier moving into his expression. It’s deep like exhaustion, but softening too.</p><p>There’s a marbled haze in his eyes, a high flush on both cheeks to match where his lips look bitten red. He looks almost delirious with shock and Derek is incapable of imagining what he looks like in turn. </p><p>He doesn’t try to imagine. Instead he peels the rest of his clothes off, reaching in to help Stiles do the same and Stiles lets him, moving like he’s in a trance. There’s a glassy quality entering his eyes that Derek feels obligated to monitor, and he inches back to coax Stiles under the warming spray. </p><p> </p><p>When Stiles stumbles over the pile of discarded clothes Derek locks a grounding hand around his hip, steering him to turn to face the shower head, Derek’s chest pressing a quiet line into his back.  </p><p>From behind him, Derek can feel the pitch and dip of Stiles’ breathing. It’s too shallow, each breath almost jerking out from his body. Derek doesn’t know what’s needed to restore it, to restore some kind of sanity to the room. His mind feels fractured, clouded and blurred like all words and sense have drained from his own body.</p><p>In lieu of anything else, Derek reaches to the side and tips a bottle of soap into his hands. Working up a thick lather feels normal, like structure somehow, and through the blur he washes them both down, letting the water run. </p><p> </p><p>Stiles doesn’t say a word, even when Derek is twisting the shower off and guiding him back out again. </p><p>His legs splay clumsily, wet and without traction on the tiled floor, and Derek pulls him in, steadying him with a towel that pulls more of Derek’s scent across his skin, mixing with soap, fresh water and soft shock. </p><p>Stiles’ skin is flushed from the heat of the shower, his arms especially dark, still marred up from the wire winch and Derek eyes him carefully, dabbing at the still faintly swollen tissue with a dry towel. </p><p>Stiles still doesn’t react, just lets Derek tend him with the same hazy silence he let himself be washed with. Derek pats the stitches dry as best he can, digs out his first aid supplies and redresses the area. </p><p> </p><p>It doesn’t feel right to deposit Stiles silent and naked back onto the couch, so Derek guides him to his bed instead. He pulls the comforter from the couch in passing, drops the damp towel to the floor and wraps Stiles in the blanket. Once he’s covered, Stiles seems to relax, going further into that distant heaviness. </p><p> </p><p>Derek finds the chaos trying to settle in his own skull is still spinning too wildly to convince himself to lie down next to him. </p><p> </p><p>Instead he dresses and leaves the loft. The building too, and falls into a rhythm tracing a path along the building’s perimeter, all the while gnawing down an urge to build a trench, a moat, a spiked wall to impale any outside thing.  </p><p>He circles the building and the side streets that wind around it, moving in slower and slower laps until night truly falls and settles in. If the route he paces turns spiralled in nature he doesn’t notice. </p><p>When he walks himself back inside it doesn’t feel like a choice he’s made himself. Instead he moves with instinct directing his bones, encouraging the muscle and sinew coating them to carry out his rounds. </p><p> </p><p>On the bed Stiles is sleeping, the sound of his breathing deep and even, and the air wrapped around the room has a strange calm to it. It’s not peace but something heavy like dark clouds, rolling currents. </p><p>Caught in those currents is the scent of blood and beneath the surface bruising, and the ache of it leads Derek down the dark hall like he’s been harnessed by it. </p><p> </p><p>The pain he soaks in from Isaac’s skin is still barking, bright and deep, though when Derek peels back the corner of the bandage, the far edges of the wounds are glueing themselves together, clean flesh consuming the tears.</p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸</p>
</div><p><br/>
<br/>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Denial Unravelling</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>In the loft, Isaac’s bedroom window faces the east side on the outskirts of downtown Beacon Hills. The thin shape of sunlight moves slow and lackadaisical across the glass panes, infiltrating the room and touching across the stiffness in Derek’s neck. Stiffness that’s been whittled into place by the handful of hours spent sleeping on the floor, and he stretches with a series of groaning cracks. </p><p>In the bed Derek has slept beside, the still-sleeping beta’s arm extends off from the edge of the mattress. His fingers are lax in sleep, held in a soft curl that points loosely at Derek’s waking form. </p><p>Derek reaches out before he stands, grasping Isaac’s forearm, spreading the warm skin between his fingers. What reaches back into his veins is more like the rough and distant idea of pain than the real thing. Satisfied, Derek gathers himself up and into the breaking day. </p><p>Closing the door on Isaac’s sunlight slumber, Derek makes his way into the open hold of the loft.  </p><p>Something nervous is stirring in the pit of his stomach as he leaves the close quarters of the hall, the telltale clatter and dull roar of the police scanner informing him that Stiles is already up. </p><p> </p><p>He’s back on the couch. Wrappers from convenience store packets are scattered across the coffee table with cans of energy drinks stacked up alongside the scanner in a small barrier that he’s wedged himself in behind. </p><p>Derek crosses into the room and one of Stiles’ hands stutters against the notebook propped up in his lap. He’s turned with an alarmed twist and Derek pauses at the sight of him. </p><p>Stiles’ eyes are startled and wide, lapping over Derek’s face and then he’s twisting again, flashing back towards the table with the focus of a hunting dog, nose pointed directly into the static. Derek can’t comprehend anything that it’s spitting out, all keys and codes.  </p><p> </p><p>“Anything useful?” Derek asks, and Stiles pulls up a new tab on his laptop, jerks the cursor around the screen with a choppy hand movement, then risks another glance back at Derek. </p><p>“More witnesses from people seeing this thing running around,” Stiles says. There’s a flush picking up on his cheeks, and when Derek lifts his eyebrows to prompt for more information Stiles balks, dropping his eyes back down to the laptop. </p><p>“Someone filed a missing person’s report for a guy,” Stiles says, his voice lifting up a bit before he’s clearing it roughly. “Three guesses what state they’re going to find him in... Couple more animal attacks too.” Stiles shifts on the couch, rustling something on the cushion beside him. Rounding to the opposite end of the couch Derek can see that it’s a large unfolded map of Beacon Hills. </p><p>“I marked the sightings, and the dead dogs,” Stiles says, grimacing as he says it. Crude and crooked dots punched onto the paper create a rough radius. </p><p>“Great,” Derek says, looking over the map. The highway cuts a flat line through the curving shape of the outline, and Derek drops onto the couch beside Stiles, reaching for a marker and adding a quick X onto the page.</p><p>“That’s the hunting truck,” he states, then adds two more X’s. “That’s where the bodies ended up, and that’s the clearing where - ”</p><p>“Yeah got it,” Stiles says quickly, rubbing the base of one thumb with the opposite knuckle. </p><p>“Still bothering you?” Derek asks, and Stiles gives him a wickedly sharp look, combative and searching. </p><p>“D’you mean this?” Stiles asks after a slight silence, gesturing to his hands. </p><p>“What else would I mean?” Derek asks, biting his tongue as soon as the words leave his mouth, a foreboding clench in his stomach at the notion of what answer he may be met with.</p><p>“Getting kidnapped and beaten up and hung from a tree for an hour,” Stiles retorts. “Because I’m not particularly over either. Or anything else that’s happened lately,” he adds, and Derek winces, only partially at the casual cadence of Stiles’ voice, the <i>shit happens, what can you do</i> with a cavalier shrug, and he’s not sure he means the violence, the monster, or Derek’s mouth on his neck.</p><p> </p><p>Beside him on the couch now Stiles feels extraordinarily human. There’s a wilt to his shoulders like he’s trying to tuck himself into some safety pocket that doesn’t really exist, and in the silence that follows Derek can hear Isaac’s dig from the day before saying <i>that’s still not healed?</i> It walks hand in hand with the defensive edge that’s been sitting serrated around Stiles all week. </p><p>Derek doesn’t know how to remedy that edge so he extends his palm quietly instead. Stiles regards him almost skittishly and for a moment Derek thinks he’s going to bolt. But then Stiles is inching to the side and dropping his wrist into the cradle of Derek’s hand. </p><p>Pain folds into Derek with the touch, skipping and lurching into his veins like the ache has grown into something sentient. Derek frowns at it, shocked by the intensity when it had been lessening the past times he’d drank it from Stiles’ skin.</p><p>He wants to ask <i>are you alright?</i> and <i>is this normal?</i> But again, Stiles feels almost unreachably human and when Derek slips his gaze off from their hands he finds Stiles looking at him with a haunted expression. </p><p>There’s a depth in his eyes that’s housing some gauzy memory of that glassy far-off look from the night before, and Derek wants to remove it, to reach out and smear it away like a spot on a mirror. </p><p>“You should really eat something that hasn’t been vacuum sealed,” is what Derek ends up saying. Then neither of them say anything else to each other for hours.</p><p> </p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸</p>
</div><p> </p><p>When Isaac trails in from down the hall later in the day, Derek is grateful for the interruption of the strange silence that’s been growing through the loft like a jungle.</p><p>“About last night,” Derek says, hearing the flinch in Stiles’ pulse at his words from across the room but he brushes it aside, resisting the urge to dwell on it. </p><p>“You said ‘that thing wasn’t an alpha,’” Derek continues as Isaac crosses into the kitchen, grabbing a bottle of water from the counter and drinking half of it before he answers.</p><p>“Its eyes,” Isaac says with a gasp of air. “Its eyes weren’t red.” Derek’s own eyes flash red with memory of the thing, close enough to breathe in its stinking breath, and though he tries he can’t recall a clear image of its eyes. Too focused on its arteries and movements, the pounding of his own heart in his ears. </p><p>“They were dark,” Isaac continues, “almost black. And the whites weren’t white, they were this blurred sort of yellow. It looked diseased. Crazy.” Isaac says the last word in a crooked rush, his hands blindly finding the lip of the counter behind him, and he sags into the support of it. </p><p>“Crazy,” Derek repeats. In his head he’s playing over the attack - the strangely fluid way the creature moved like it was waltzing with him, dizzy and delighted, and Isaac watches him intently like he’s chasing those movements with his own eyes. </p><p>“What does it mean?” Isaac asks, and Derek gives him a grim look that says it all wordlessly. </p><p>
  <i>I don’t know. I don’t know anything.</i>
</p><p> </p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸</p>
</div><p> </p><p>Isaac feeds the information to Stiles while Derek paces the long wall of windows.</p><p><i>Crazy,</i> his thoughts keep looping in Isaac’s voice. It plays alongside the dead hunter’s notes, Allison asking about alphas, about their four-legged lunar shift. It’s all shadowed by the baying of dead dogs and the impatient stares of his dead betas pressing close while he sleeps. </p><p> </p><p>When Scott comes by it’s with Allisons’ scent so closely in tow that Derek is glancing up to see if she’s joined them too.</p><p>“Got your text,” Scott says to Stiles. “What’d you find?” </p><p>Derek can feel his brow dropping into a malcontented scowl. It doesn’t sit right with the alpha - Stiles diligently reporting his findings to Scott when he won’t so much as look at Derek - but there’s no room for it to be spoken out loud. Not with the shape of the other alpha pacing through his mind, the gristle-prickle of Isaac’s shredded flesh playing continuously in his ears. </p><p>“I think I found something from Pennsylvania that might be the same thing we’re dealing with,” Stiles says after a slight hesitation.</p><p>“So what is it?” Scott asks, and Stiles sighs again like he’s stalling for time.</p><p>“I’m translating paragraphs from latin. It’s slow going, and I’m not one hundred precent on it yet...”</p><p>“What is it?” Scott repeats with a patient and attentive intonation. </p><p>“Did you know that Pennsylvania comes from the latin root ‘silva?’ It means ‘woods.’ It’s like every fucking thing comes back to silver and the woods...” Derek moves further into the room at this, drinking up the words, though when he looks over at Stiles his eyes are unreachable, shifting across the pages on the table. </p><p>“It’s like there’s this completely intricate and mostly intact undercurrent buried beneath every word and every meaning that we use, but no one knows what it means anymore, and everything that gets uncovered is just riddles and monsters and - ”</p><p><i>“Stiles.”</i> Somehow Scott’s voice has woven that same patience with a soft chide, a nudge of support, and his eyes are dark and warm and picking up the edginess and twitches that Stiles is sporting. Scott holds them gently. Derek finds he’s nervous too - at what Scott is going to find on Stiles, and interpret through his rambling. </p><p>Stiles falls into a stippled silence then, clamping down on his tongue and looks alarmed, perhaps by the rate at which he’s been speaking while not really saying anything. He shifts his eyes around the room then in a cagey flicker like he’s distrustful of himself, as if his next words are going to expose something vital to Scott - expose <i>them,</i> though Derek doesn’t know what it is that’s waiting to be exposed, waiting to be drawn out from either of them, not when either side is saying anything.</p><p>Stiles’ shifting sweep of the room seems to stumble unintentionally across Derek then, and their eyes meet for a moment. Then he’s blinking almost violently, shielding himself away from Derek’s gaze and when his lips part the word that drops out is foreign but assured. </p><p>“Vargulf.” </p><p> </p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸</p>
</div><p> </p><p>There’s a look passed from Scott to Isaac, a question and an answer, an unspoken offer, and Isaac leaves with him. </p><p>It feels to Derek like he’s been snatched away from him, ensnared by that warmth in the beta’s eyes and Derek is left thinking thin and bitter thoughts. <i>I made you,</i> his mind spits out, bitten and bruised. <i>Spent the night on the floor beside you.</i> Then softer, deeper - <i>I want you close. I want you safe.</i> </p><p>They’re jaded, scorned and bristled thoughts, because now he’s alone in the loft with Stiles, and under the high ceilings, the echoing empty space, the cavernous space doesn’t feel large enough to house them both. </p><p> </p><p>The silence serves as a challenge though, and the pacing animal running Derek’s mind and actions steps up to face it. </p><p>Stiles doesn’t look up when Derek comes to stand behind the couch, watching blocks of text on the screen wind past as he scrolls endlessly. From the angle, the glare of the screen is unreadable, just a bluish glow of symbols and Derek finds himself looking at the faded swell of Stiles’ wrists against the keyboard instead.  </p><p>The tissue is still dark and mottled, the blue-black thread of stitches a stark contrast against his skin, and Derek runs a hand across his own arm without thinking. The flesh the alpha - vargulf? - had bit into has healed over, smooth and unbothered. The only evidence is the paranoid shadow in Derek’s mind, itching for him to track the thing down and finish the job. </p><p>“Your dad didn’t find out?” Derek asks, still looking at the discolouration and stitches and Stiles gives a startled jump.</p><p>“My - find out...?” he cuts off his stunned reply, then looks down at his hands on the computer keyboard before suddenly pulling them to his sides like it’s Derek he’s been trying to hide them from. </p><p>“No,” Stiles mutters. “No, he didn’t. All good on that front.” </p><p>“So,” Derek begins uncomfortably, and even without looking up from the computer screen, Stiles looks afflicted. </p><p>“Vargulf?” Derek supplies, and a spark seems to go off within Stiles’ demeanour.</p><p>“Know anything about it?” Stiles asks, a heat in his eyes that seems to be latching onto the neutral grounds of monster research.</p><p>“Never heard of it,” Derek says, bending at the waist to lean over the back of the couch, nodding for Stiles to talk. </p><p>“The Argent’s bestiary has a pretty short entry on it,” Stiles picks up, risking a sideways glance at Derek. “I don’t think they ever encountered one, just heard about it.”</p><p>“Because of the entry length?” Derek prompts, and Stiles makes an dissatisfied face at the open tab, closes it to reveal another. </p><p>“Because they haven’t mentioned how to kill it,” Stiles says. “There’s this mythology page that seems to be half garbage and half folklore, and it talks about vargulves as like, this spiritual wrong-doing.”</p><p>“Spiritual wrong-doing,” Derek repeats flatly, and the expulsion of air from Stiles is almost a laugh. </p><p>“They’re talking about lycanthropy like it’s a gift, a practice to be respected and it connects you to your higher self, or something,” Stiles continues, and Derek falls quiet. </p><p>“And the power of the full moon is this blessed opportunity to fill your soul with cosmic power - ” <i>Bloodlust and hormones,</i> Derek infers internally, and Stiles glances away from the page to regard him in profile. </p><p>“Is a shred of that accurate?” He asks, and Derek looks back to him with a pained expression.</p><p>“If cosmic power translates to adrenaline and an insatiable desire for human flesh, then sure.” </p><p>“Ooh,” Stiles shivers, then redirects back to the page. “Lovely. Okay, so this is all probably meaningless drivel.” He scrolls through the site some more, lands on a paragraph and highlights it.</p><p>“It uses that strain of spiritual bullshit to explain what a vargulf is, though. Or <i>why</i> a vargulf is, rather.” He taps a button and the paragraph enlarges while he recaps it. “They say that when a lycanthrope reaches its peak potential, the human side can get obsessed with that power. And anyone who tries to reach into that ‘cosmic power’ when it’s not ‘due’ can become tainted by this, and their greed for power changes them.” </p><p>“Like an alpha trying to turn into their evolved form without the full moon,” Derek offers. </p><p>“Without the full moon...” Stiles repeats in a mutter, and a series of taps on the keyboard has a new site popping up. “This page keeps talking about <i>‘bad moons.’”</i></p><p>“I didn’t think it was possible to shift into that form at any other time,” Derek muses, leaning in to scan the page himself.</p><p>“Apparently it takes a lot of effort and pain,” Stiles says, and blows up a painting of a man being consumed by a great wolf, his hands clawing out from its mouth as the moon rises. </p><p>“‘A lycanthrope is a silver coin, two heads and two hearts, and the balance between man and wolf must combine to achieve their greatest power,’” Stiles reads quickly, stealing another glance at Derek. “Does that sound right?” </p><p>“Still sounds like new age hippie bullshit,” Derek says back, and Stiles looks a little bemused. “But better than the cosmic power shit.”</p><p>“Look at this,” Stiles says, refocusing on the screen. “Some wolves are conquered by the man, and poisoned by his desire for power - ’” An image of a coin flashes into Derek’s mind with this, Peter’s face on one side, Deucalion on the other. “‘Balance tries to restore. A sacrifice is made, and a vargulf is born.’”</p><p>“So this thing running around tearing things up is balance being restored?” Derek asks, and Stiles shoots him a look that cuts off the unimpressed bite of his tone with a matching energy.</p><p>“From what I’ve found surrounding that advanced alpha form, it hurts like a bitch to maintain without the full moon. And in general, the transformation seems to majorly suck.” Derek makes an affirming sound and Stiles pauses, breaking away from the screen again.</p><p>“Have you ever...?”</p><p>“No,” Derek says firmly. Then, softer, “I watched what it did to Peter.”</p><p>“I don’t think Peter was far off from turning into one of these things,” Stiles adds darkly and Derek grimaces at the notion. </p><p>“What’s the sacrifice?” He asks, directing away from the thorny topic of family. </p><p>“From what I can tell, their sanity,” Stiles says, lifting his left hand to his mouth to sink his teeth into a rough cuticle. “Seems like a vargulf is an alpha werewolf that’s knee-deep in psychosis.” </p><p> </p><p>Next, Stiles gives Derek the rundown on the Argent’s entry on the creature. He brushes over some footnote scribe about there being a potential cure, “if you can remove the wolf from the person, but I don’t know what that means.” </p><p>“Convince it to shift back?” Derek wagers, and Stiles’ shrug says <i>your guess is as good as mine.</i></p><p>“Mostly the bestiary just reiterates that a vargulf is a rabid dog times ten, should be put down, usual Argent motive. Infuriatingly doesn’t mention <i>how</i> to do said putting down,” Stiles concludes. </p><p>“Maybe it’s the same as killing any alpha,” Derek suggests and again, Stiles shrugs. This time the gesture runs a little helpless.</p><p> </p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸</p>
</div><p> </p><p>The afternoon bleeds into evening with Stiles researching and bouncing ideas off of Derek. They’ve entered a stale sort of truce that’s tiptoeing around not talking about anything other than the monster on the loose, though something is itching at the borders of Derek’s senses, something unwell that won’t come to a head. He tries to focus on it, but it slips away like smoke and he finds himself focusing on some distant outside noise instead - something getting closer.</p><p>The sound is ringing out from the streets below the loft. A few seconds pass and it becomes unmistakable - the thunder of footsteps, of something running fast through the lower level of the building. </p><p>Derek is beside Stiles as the sound reaches the stairwell, one arm reaching out on impulse to flatten against Stiles’ chest, bracing for something and Stiles’ eyes are losing that defensive barrier, they’re focusing in, shining with intensity and he’s leaning in towards the line of Derek’s arm saying, “what is it? Derek what do you hear?” </p><p> </p><p>Isaac tears into the loft and the door slamming back to connect with the wall behind it crashes loudly. Stiles jumps violently and Derek can feel the surge of his heartbeat slamming too.</p><p>“Derek,” Isaac pants, as if he hadn’t captured his attention already. “Scott and Allison are in the woods. They’ve set up a trap system, they’re trying to catch this thing alone.” </p><p>“The <i>hell</i> they are,” Derek says, on his feet before Isaac had finished speaking. “Where are they?”</p><p>“I’ll take you, I tried to tell them it was stronger, I tried to - ” Isaac is saying, out of breath but surging back through the door and Derek is fast behind him. </p><p>“I can help,” Stiles is saying, on his feet now too with a sway in his step as he tails Derek to the door. </p><p>“You’ll just slow us down,” Derek says, herding Isaac through the frame and blocking Stiles behind it as he slams the door on his outburst of <i> “Derek, wait!”</i> </p><p> </p><p>“Tell me what you know,” Derek says to Isaac as they fly down the hall. He doesn’t command it with his voice but Isaac answers immediately as if he had, spilling his guts like he’s been sliced open again.</p><p>It’s a rushed spew of information - <i>they’ve covered their scents, ditched everything reflective, anything that makes sound</i> - </p><p>“So their phones are off,” Derek translates darkly. It means something, has to mean something, that Isaac had been welcomed into Allison and Scott’s alliance, that he had turned and come back to Derek - come <i>running</i> back to Derek but there’s no time for praise or pride or rewards of loyalty.     </p><p> </p><p>The tires of Derek’s car squeal shrilly on the damp pavement as he floors it around the side of the building. </p><p>The route flashes by in a rush of grey city turning to the smear of thick woods, and Derek parks haphazardly on the shoulder when Isaac demands that they stop. They’re both out of the car in a flash, and Derek can spy a small gap between the trees.</p><p>“This way,” Isaac says, already flying down the path and Derek follows, charging into the trees beside him. </p><p>There’s no hint of their scents, no trail to follow that isn’t his faith in Isaac, but as they run deeper into the woods something emerges. Not a trace of Scott and Allison, but the familiar smell of musk and grit, dark fur and rotting meat. </p><p>Once it locks into place it takes over, the scent of the other alpha clinging to every recess in Derek’s mind, sprayed thick between the trees like it’s inviting him to follow it. </p><p>He almost falls into it, almost noses straight into that coiling tail of scent before Isaac is gripping hold of his shoulder bitingly hard, pulling him away from it.</p><p>“This way,” Isaac hisses, tugging, and Derek can see the labyrinthine path they had tried to track those first nights, the endless scrawling loops throughout the trees. </p><p>Derek tries to block the scent out then, pins his sight on Isaac’s back and they run, charging through the trees, their footsteps crushing and bold. </p><p> </p><p>“It’s...here,” Isaac pants. “They were somewhere right here,” he whirls then, spinning to scan through the wall of trees. They’re blending in symmetry, green and rough and he can’t seem to gather his thoughts. Stress and adrenaline warping his senses and Derek snarls, snapping Isaac’s attention towards him, grounding and vicious. </p><p>Derek’s flashing his eyes then and the trees part, a heartbeat of infrared between them, burning and pulling him towards it.</p><p> </p><p>It’s Scott that materializes through the scarlet blur. He’s on his feet, but Derek can’t imagine him staying there for much longer. He’s slashed up, the hot core of colour emanating from him impossibly bright, a crosshatched flare of healing and bleeding.</p><p>In front of Scott the colossal shape of the vargulf is dancing and darting, in and out towards his frame, digging pieces of Scott’s arms under its nails with each swing.</p><p>What doesn’t make sense to Derek is how Scott isn’t trying to run or cut to the side to line up a fighting angle, not trying to lay any blows at all. </p><p>But there - behind him on the ground Derek can see a crumpled mass and the stationary hold of Scott’s body clicks into place horribly. It’s desperately protective, his body a crumbling wall that the alpha is gunning to bust through, and then the overpowering scent of the alpha steps away, takes a backward bow to reveal the unmistakable smell of human blood. </p><p>Derek grabs Isaac by the shoulders, spins him to face the wall of heat burning into his vision, and he takes off towards it. </p><p> </p><p>The vargulf hears him coming - it must - but it doesn’t react. Doesn’t direct its focus away from chewing through Scott’s defences, even as Derek bursts through the bridge of foliage.</p><p>Then Derek’s on top of it, colliding with it head-on and his fangs clamp down over its snout. The bite force has his ears popping, white stars blowing up through his vision and he’s crushing through bone. He can hear the ivory pitch of its teeth mashing together within its crumpled jaw. The next thing Derek hears is Isaac erupting from between the trees, leaping and latching onto one of the vargulf’s front limbs, still reaching out hungrily towards Scott. </p><p>Derek shoulders himself closer, his legs anchoring his weight into an immovable force. He swipes down with this channelled weight and his claws wedge so deep inside the vargulf’s midsection that he can feel tissue gripping around his biceps trying to fuse back together around him. </p><p>The smell is noxious - digested flesh and sweet decay - and Derek can feel the quaking shudder of the vargulf’s breath. It’s shallow and belching, hot and fast.</p><p>In the next moment it’s ripping off away from him with a horrible wet puckering sound and just like the distillery, the black smear of its fur is swallowed up by the dark of the woods and it’s gone.</p><p> </p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸</p>
</div><p> </p><p>On the ground Allison is torn to pieces, Scott kneeling overtop of her trying to put them back together.</p><p>If she’s still conscious it’s a state that’s hanging by a thread, and probably blessedly so. Blood is coating every inch of exposed skin. Her shirt clawed to ruins and plastered to the torn flesh beneath. There’s a hole in her shoulder that looks deep enough to get lost in and beside it her collarbone is visibly splintered, catching the last dregs of light coming down from the sky. </p><p>Scott is on his knees beside her, his hands a stunted ripple of motion over her body refusing to settle or start, but finally they drop to her hands, collecting them in her lap. Already sopping up pain Scott twists on the ground, turns to Derek. </p><p>The shine in Scott’s eyes is much too dark to be called yellow, like bloody streaks through amber glass, and the flash of it has Derek thinking wildly - <i>No! It can’t be!</i> and another part of him - his bones, his heart, his gut - insisting that <i>of course. Of course he is. Of course he will be.</i> </p><p>These thoughts are shaken off like leaves catching the brunt of a gusting storm. Shaken off and buried again because there’s no power in Scott’s stance now, no calm deliberation or leadership willing to touch him. In the captured image of Scott reflected in Derek’s eyes he’s just young, almost a child in how small he’s hunched himself over Allison’s body. There’s a desperate cling to his hands atop hers, and that shine in his eyes is being eaten by the shine of terrified tears.</p><p>Tears that don’t have time to spill before Derek is ripping his shirt off, wadding it up and stuffing it into the hole in Allison’s shoulder that’s pouring blood onto the forest floor. </p><p>“Put pressure on that,” Derek’s saying to Scott, the authority in his tone leaving no room for hesitation, and Scott is obeying before the words have fully left his mouth. </p><p>“Harder,” Derek says and Scott pins more muscle into it. The sound of Allison’s clavicle grinding in response sounds bright against the night but Derek won’t let Scott flinch, won’t let him remove any of his weight.</p><p>There’s a look swimming through the vacant stretch of Isaac’s eyes - locked onto but not truly seeing the shape of Allison on the ground. It’s a look that Derek doesn’t have time to think about, doesn’t want to address when a twin expression is warping the features of Scott’s face too, and Derek is barking an order at Isaac, shattering the spell. </p><p>The beta whips his belt off, tossing it to Derek when he demands it and Derek feeds the end through itself, hooking it around Allison’s other arm and wrenching it tight. It’s a butchered tourniquet, but the flesh it’s holding together is butchered too, marred and coughing up blood from a dozen gashes. <i>Defensive movements</i> his mind supplies automatically. He can see her form behind his eyes, face to face with the creature, raising her arms to protect her face as it leapt and slashed inwards, those strange, swaying, liquid movements, as if it had all the time in the world. Just as clearly Derek can imagine Scott at the thing’s back, its sides, sinking his claws in, desperately ripping into it. He can see the holes and gouges flowing closed, can see the monster not reacting, not caring that it’s been attacked.</p><p>Unable to care, not when there was something fresh and frightened bleeding in its hands. </p><p> </p><p>That fresh and frightened thing is bleeding in Derek’s hands now. Her eyes are wholly not present, not dead but drifting like the thought of death is speaking to her with sweet temptation. Scott’s voice is hushed and caving at Derek’s sides, begging him to do something, begging her to stay, the words blurring and blending until he’s just saying her name and nothing else. </p><p><i>“Allison, Allison!”</i> </p><p>And the picture of her inside Derek’s mind isn’t shaped like <i>enemy</i> any more, but some primitive and fallen shape of <i>womanchildhuman.</i> Her strength, her cunning and that fast arching light of her eyes all human too. Her skills with bows and accuracy so useless in close combat, her knives carving up the monster’s face and limbs that were healing before the strokes could fully fall. </p><p>It’s a dizzying onslaught of images, and Derek’s hands are slippery with blood as he feeds his fingers into a gash on her midsection, flattening and pressing down. It seems that every move he makes is discovering a new hole in her body, too many to stem the bleeding on all of them and he’s fighting through these thoughts and visions, trying to give his energy to the ones that need it most. </p><p>But even as he orders Scott and Isaac to pin the wounds, to tip her head so she can breathe - he’s certain a lung has collapsed, the sound barely coming past her lips is reedy, thin - it’s that other alpha that he’s seeing.</p><p>Its face, as it had been in front of him in the distillery, now imposed atop this battered paper doll that’s bleeding in his hands. Its face, not twisted and snarling like an alpha in battle but peaceful almost, dazed and gleeful, biting in with a bliss between its teeth. </p><p> </p><p>Together they carry her out of the woods. The red glare of Derek’s eyes leading their path and all the while his mind is cataloguing things with such detachment that it feels callous even to himself. </p><p>The wet sucking rattle of Allison’s breath dances with the flattened out silence that’s conquered Scott’s frame and Derek is thinking <i>it doesn’t mind getting wounded because the pain it took to shift has driven it mad. It doesn’t feel it.</i> </p><p>The worn-down trail between the trees that they’re rushing through would be well-lit in daylight, inviting almost - <i>it’s not afraid of being found.</i> </p><p>The slowly healing claw marks littering Scott’s body, like it had been dismissing him, pushing him out of the way to finish its work. </p><p>This thought jars Derek into a new strand of thinking - it’s <i>work,</i> and his reaction to the hunters all strung up along the trees. He had thought that was <i>art,</i> decoration and performance, and the thought that comes next is so fiercely filled with rage and disgust. Scott is fumbling to unlock the door while supporting Allison’s head and the sound she makes when moved is mournful, bubbling, and Derek’s mind explodes.</p><p><i>It’s having fun. It’s doing this for fun.</i> </p><p> </p><p>A box in the backseat tumbles out onto the ground as Scott cradles Allison onto the seats, her body unmoving but the wet gurgle of her breath still rasping through. </p><p>“Get them out of here,” Derek is saying, Isaac already folding himself into the driver’s seat, fingers jamming the key into the ignition. </p><p>“You’re not coming?” Isaac says, panic so high in his throat but his eyes are clear again, scratching across Derek’s outline as the engine jumps to life. </p><p>“Go!” Derek roars it and Isaac’s face is ghostly pale but he nods, floors the gas and the car is peeling off and disappearing down the lane.  </p><p> </p><p>The box that toppled out from the back seat is lying listlessly on the ground now. Stooping to investigate, Derek finds both sets of their house keys, a neon strapped arm band, a set of ring daggers - presumably left because of their highly focused shine and the possibility of reflecting light into the trees. The sight of them abandoned in the box has Derek thinking grimly that they wouldn’t have helped even if she had held on to them. </p><p>At the bottom of the box is Scott’s phone. It’s shut down, and when Derek powers it back up the screen is all lit up and barking with unanswered texts and calls and the rain is picking up again.</p><p> </p><p>Tucking the box under one arm, Derek thumbs the phone open. The front screen reveals dozens of missed calls from Stiles and Derek hits the call back button.</p><p>“Thank God, Scotty, where are you? Are you okay?” Stiles' voice cuts into the starting note of the first ring. </p><p>“It’s me,” Derek says, and the silence that ripples out across the line feels like a punch to the stomach. “It tore them up pretty good, they’re at the hospital,” he reports. His voice sounds laced with something heavy and grating, uncaringly routine and there’s a shuffling sound from the speaker. He can picture Stiles entering that state of nervous pacing, muscles locking up and refusing to stay immobile. </p><p>“Is it bad?” Stiles asks after a stiffening pause. The words come out somewhat muffled and Derek imagines him with his thumbnail clenched between his teeth. He knows the pause was partially Stiles trying not to ask <i>is anyone dead?</i></p><p>“It’s not good,” Derek answers. His voice sounds stiff too. Projected from behind his eyes are bursts and fragments of blood. The hole in Allison’s shoulder. The oil-slick curve of her veins in his hands. The chunks missing from Scott’s arms. The fabric of his shirt turned dark like gasoline as Scott pinned her to the forest floor. The too-white wash of Allison’s face. This slideshow is interrupted by Stiles’ voice. </p><p>“Where are you?” </p><p>“I’m outside the preserve,” Derek says back somewhat robotically. The rain is really coming down now, the sound of it against the tops of the trees almost a crackle. </p><p>“Where are you going?” Stiles asks, and the question makes Derek realize that he’s walking, has been walking since he hit <i>dial</i> and the silence of the woods on either side feels shrouding, dark and deep. </p><p>It doesn’t feel right to admit that he doesn’t know - that he’s in the woods without a pack or a plan, with that rich dark scent of the alpha - <i>the vargulf</i> - that seems to be sketching lines around him.  </p><p>“What does it want?” Derek asks instead of answering. He’s back at the gap of trees the vargulf had fled through. The entwined notes of <i>Scott and Allison,</i> so close they could be one creature, overwrite everything. They had covered their scents but the efforts are futile now; distress is laced so heavily through the woods that Derek has to gather himself to see past it. </p><p>“It doesn’t want anything,” Stiles breathes in his ear. “It’s just going to tear things to pieces until it dies.” </p><p>In his head he can see it running in those terrible, dizzying loops. Those trails he couldn’t make sense of, those scribbled over knots of scent where the hunters had been carried through the woods. </p><p><i>No sense</i> he thinks. <i>No sanity.</i></p><p> </p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸</p>
</div><p> </p><p>Derek finds himself back at the loft shirtless and streaked with blood and rain. The air inside feels off balance somehow and Derek staggers into it.</p><p>Stiles is there in front of him like he’s run towards the sound of the door, moving unbalanced too. He’s skidding to an unsteady stop at the sight of Derek. </p><p>“You didn’t take your phone,” Stiles says in one tight breath. Derek blinks. It’s not <i>what happened,</i> it’s not <i>where’s Scott?</i> and the words don’t sink past the surface at all.</p><p>“What?” Derek’s saying, and some kind of heated energy is rioting within Stiles, gearing up and when he speaks again it’s manic, tumbling. </p><p>“You didn’t take your <i>phone,</i> you left it here, Scott wasn’t answering, <i>no one</i> was answering - ” The same panic that was in Isaac’s throat is gripping Stiles now, shaking him and Derek’s first instinct is to grab him, ground him by the shoulders and cover that high strung scent of worry with his own. </p><p>Stiles stumbles back away from him when he advances, chasing the instinct, and Derek freezes to the floor. </p><p>Stiles’ eyes aren’t on his face, they’re trapped in the glare of the blood on his hands, and looking down Derek gets trapped in it too. Allison’s blood is drying and cracking around the bends of each knuckle, glueing a tacky sheen to his palms. The swirls of his fingerprints embossed in red, his identity a painting of violence and carnage and Derek almost laughs, no small wonder that Stiles would back away from his indelicate attempt at comfort. </p><p>“You didn’t take your phone,” Stiles says again, his voice a scratching thing that drops to the floor. He tosses the phone in question towards Derek then, who catches it one handed. There’s a cloak of exhaustion stitched around Stiles’ frame and Derek shoulders past him to lock himself in the bathroom. </p><p> </p><p>Washing the blood from his hands Derek tries to steady his heartbeat, to breathe in something clear. Most of what he draws in is tinted with the iron thick smell that’s circling the drain. </p><p> </p><p>His phone rings on the counter as he’s drying his hands. Like Scott’s phone, his screen is a mess of dozens of missed calls and the sight sticks into him like a knife. He thumbs over Isaac’s flashing name, answers dully. </p><p>“What happened?” Isaac asks when he picks up. </p><p>“It ran off,” Derek replies. “Allison?” He doesn’t specify, doesn’t have to. </p><p>“Don’t know,” Isaac says back. “They took her into surgery.” There’s a pause in which Derek can hear the background clatter of the hospital. The sounds are echoed, footsteps and voices bouncing off of waxed floors. </p><p>“Could you give me a ride back?” Isaac asks then and Derek accedes. He’s pulling a clean shirt over his head in the next moment, heading back towards the main door. </p><p>“Where are you going?” Stiles asks from the couch. There’s a weight in his voice that could be the hour, the effects of the screen that’s still glaring light across his face, and Derek pauses to take him in.</p><p>The only light in the room is that same blueish white glow from the laptop. It’s hitting Stiles’ face in all the wrong places and he looks pallid, both washed and strung out. </p><p>“Hospital,” Derek says. “Getting Isaac.” </p><p>“Take your phone,” Stiles says. Then, a bit delayed, “If you leave me behind because I’m completely useless - <i>fine.</i> Just take your fucking phone with you, okay?” </p><p>Derek doesn’t know what to say, so he says <i>okay.</i> The streets are pooling with rain and the hospital sign is a neon flush through his windshield.</p><p> </p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸</p>
</div><p> </p><p>The hospital is engulfed with the bludgeoning smell of disinfectants and the white glow of tube lights.</p><p>Walking through the lobby to the halls Derek feels like an outsider, unaccustomed to the bleak realities of healing and illness, and the faces passing him feel untouchable. </p><p>When he slips into the waiting room and catches Isaac’s eye, the feeling of Scott sagging into the weight of Derek’s embrace feels untouchable too. Even as the beta grasps hold, presses his face into Derek’s shirt, all Derek can hear is a version of Scott saying <i>you’re not my alpha.</i> How simple and efficient his words had been in casting himself away from Derek’ reach. </p><p>“Do you want to come back with us?” Derek asks, knowing they answer is no and pushing past it to ask anyway. </p><p>“I can’t leave,” Scott says. His throat sounds constricted, painful. “I can’t leave her.” There’s a distance in Scott’s focus, and Derek knows it’s because he’s fixated on the sounds trapped inside the operating room. Blocking out the machines and the metallic clack of tools, honing in on the heartbeat that matters. Derek chases it too for a moment. It’s feeble, blatting. </p><p>Derek has no argument that could compete with that sound. Nothing with any merit, not when he knows within his own heart that he’d do the same. That callous track from the woods wants to say <i>you should rest.</i> Wants to say <i>there’s nothing you can do here.</i> And more terribly, wants to say <i>I told you so.</i> He doesn’t say any of it. Instead he wraps his arms tighter around the tremulous weight of Scott’s shoulders and he presses in, holds him in the waiting room. </p><p>The surgery lasts three hours. Derek doesn’t leave until the monitor tracking the pulse in the room has aligned with Scott’s.</p><p> </p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸</p>
</div><p> </p><p>The rain is still hammering down when Derek and Isaac leave the hospital and make the drive back to the loft.</p><p> </p><p>Isaac recoils once he’s walked past the door frame, knocking into the wall and wrinkling his nose.</p><p>“Fuck, what is that?” He hisses, and Derek’s nostrils flare in response. The air inside the loft is thickly stitched with a sharply sour scent, grating deep into his senses and his eyes slash automatically towards Stiles’ figure on the couch. </p><p>“Fever,” Derek says, a delayed response to Isaac as he crosses swiftly into the room. </p><p>That lurking sense of something unwell has grown, sprouted with a thorny stem and flowered, and Derek can see it blooming in the high colour of Stiles‘ face where he lies across the cushions.   </p><p>“Where’s Scott?” Stiles asks as Derek approaches. He bracing an arm at one side to push himself up but then winces, jolting violently away from the pressure. Derek moves to the edge of the couch, reaching out carefully to nudge him into a seated position. Stiles’ body moves uneasily, both heavy and limp and Derek frowns at this as he tries to adjust. </p><p>“He’s at the hospital,” Derek answers.</p><p>“Allison?” Stiles asks, and his eyes trace in a crooked shape across the loft as if he’s expecting to see her there. </p><p>“She’s going to be alright,” Derek says. He sees no point in spreading on a layer of worry to Stiles’ disposition now, and finds himself disproportionately grateful that there are no heightened senses to pick up the wavering unsureness in Derek’s pulse that accompany the words, or the smell of human blood still following him like a shadow.  </p><p>“She only had what it was,” Stiles says. There’s a faint slur to his words, like he’s just woken up, but Derek can see etchings around his eyes insisting that he hadn’t been sleeping. He doesn’t have the chance to ask Stiles to clarify what he means before Stiles is speaking again. </p><p>“Where’s Scott?” Stiles says, and from across the room Isaac exchanges a look of dull alarm with Derek. “Where’s Scott, I have to tell him something,” and Stiles is shifting, making to get off the couch. There’s no coordination to his movement, and Derek hesitantly drops a hand to his shoulder, holding him in place carefully. </p><p>“He’s at the hospital,” Derek repeats. “You should lie down.” </p><p>“What?” Stiles says, a film of disorientation spreading from his eyes to the rest of him, spinning and strange. “What time is it?”  </p><p>“It’s late,” Derek says, a non-answer and Stiles doesn’t seem sated by it.</p><p>“What did you need to tell Scott?” Derek tries next.</p><p>“That he can’t save everyone,” Stiles says with a groan, trying to recline lengthwise on the couch. His position looks almost relaxed for a moment before he’s churning roughly to one side, like something inside him has been twisted. “Fuck, my head hurts.”  </p><p>“Come on,” Derek says decisively, and eases his hands back to Stiles’ waist, encouraging him back upright again. </p><p>“You, bed,” Derek directs to Isaac and the beta spins on his heels, vanishing with diligence. </p><p>“And you, also bed,” Derek adds, supporting Stiles’ weight as stands, teetering to one side. </p><p>“What time is it?” Stiles asks again, and once Derek has deposited him onto his mattress Derek checks his phone. </p><p>“Almost midnight,” he answers, and Stiles sniffs, shaking his head like Derek’s offended him. </p><p>“Stiles, look at me,” Derek says then, and Stiles’ eyes lift to meet Derek’s face. They’re bloodshot, and there’s something to his face that looks almost waxy. Derek lifts his hand then, presses it to Stiles’ forehead. The skin is hot and confirming, and Derek can feel the crawling arms of pain reaching into his palm from Stiles’ temples.  </p><p>“What’s the verdict, doc?” Stiles says, and the rasp in his voice counteracts anything humour could hope to try. </p><p>“I think you’re an idiot,” Derek responds, dropping his hand and Stiles blinks at him in a manner that would be affronted if he didn’t look so disoriented. </p><p>“Probably not curable at this point,” Stiles says, and Derek snorts. </p><p>“You stopped taking those pills you got at the pharmacy, didn’t you,” Derek says, and from the angle beside the bed, he’s tipping a finger under Stiles’ chin. Stiles shuffles on the mattress. </p><p>“I couldn’t focus on anything,” he says, and Derek stifles a groan. </p><p>“You have an infection,” he says, leaving Stiles on the bed to root through his belongings. He retrieves a prescription canister, grabs a few water bottles from the kitchen and returns popping the canister open and offering a tab to Stiles pointedly. </p><p>Stiles takes it without argument, and Derek commands him as gently as he can muster to drink more, and then to sleep. Stiles does both without grace, and Derek settles in at the bottom of the bed, eyes cast out the window like he’s keeping watch.</p><p> </p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸</p>
</div><p> </p><p>Stiles is slipping in and out of an almost peaceful sleep when his system starts griping about the onslaught of fluids. His pulse shifts from a rhythmic thrum to something twinged with discomfort, and he comes to, rolling onto his back and gripping himself through his pants absentmindedly.</p><p>He freezes when he opens his eyes, sitting up to find Derek so close by. One leg kicks up into a tremor that’s at least half startled energy and then he’s locking up like the sensation is transporting him back to the events after the distillery.  </p><p>“Fuck, Derek,” Stiles whines then, dropping his head to the back of the mattress and reaching up to dig the heels of his palms into his eye sockets. “Last night...” and Derek tenses too.</p><p>“I should’ve said something,” Stiles continues, the words coming up both thick and runny, clumping together. “I should’ve...that wasn’t okay, that’s not supposed to <i>happen.”</i> </p><p>“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Derek says, but the flushed spike of hairs along the back of his neck do, and he flattens them back down with a slick palm. </p><p>“Just, the blood and the alpha... Just happened so fast,” there’s a fracture in Stiles’ voice then, a sharp pull of breath that sounds terrified, and mortified. In the splitting seconds that follow Derek thinks he can see the scenes all playing in muddy loops in Stiles’ eyes. The distillery, the blood pouring from Isaac’s stomach and the tips of Derek’s claws. </p><p>Then the shower stall. The wolf distorting Derek’s features, the hungry fold of his spine, Stiles soaked in fear and something deeper, something burning, reaching out, breaking, spilling...</p><p>He can see it all smearing and draining through that haze in Stiles’ eyes, like he’s reliving all of it at once and Derek’s mind is desperately scratching at locked doors, seeking a way out.</p><p>“Just happened too fast,” Stiles is saying. “It just...I didn’t mean to, I couldn’t - ” </p><p>“Don’t care how fast you came,” Derek sweeps in, writing as much disinterest into his tone as he can. </p><p>“How <i>fast I - ”</i> Stiles stammers himself to silence and flushes deeper, though it’s lost amid the fever on his face. There’s still something careful in his eyes, like he’s treading around Derek’s own closed off expression, prying and documenting the tics and dismissals. </p><p>“Okay,” he says then, slumping back against the headboard behind him then, and there’s something in the movement that spells out to Derek how Stiles is fighting to let something go, to drop something he’s been trying to dig out from between them and Derek can almost taste the relief of not having to talk about it. </p><p>Stiles does let it go, padding off towards the bathroom. When he returns Derek has claimed the couch for the night, and he ignores Stiles’ resulting protest. There’s no backbone to it, and he falls asleep in Derek’s bed without much argument, too worn out to battle both the alpha and consciousness.</p><p> </p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸</p>
</div><p> </p><p>Derek wakes from a veiled sleep. There’s nothing gradual about the way consciousness grips hold of him, pulling his body into a motion that pulls him upright before he can process why.</p><p>He sees it once he’s standing and facing the open space of the loft. There’s a figure at the door, one hand held out to feel the wall for balance in the dark. Stiles - moving with the slow and disorienting sway of a sleepwalker, and Derek approaches cautiously. </p><p>The sour scent of fever is still present and catching at the back of Derek’s throat as he moves towards the door, a strange slump to Stiles’ shoulders like he’s caught in some trance. </p><p>“Stiles?” Derek tries, speaking lowly like anything louder might send him running or crashing down, and Stiles turns towards him with a glaze that’s been painted over his pupils. “What are you doing?”</p><p><i>“Tomnydrsnhere,”</i> Stiles mumbles back unintelligibly, and his next step is misplaced, sending him toppling backwards into the corner of the wall. Derek intercepts the faltering motion, catching him without symmetry or grace around the waist. </p><p>“What?” Derek asks, feeling the frown that creases through his features as Stiles sags into the pressure of his hands. His feet skid against the floor and he seems to wrestle against gravity, pushing off from the wall behind him with a low whine like he’s frustrated with the lack of coordination stemming from his own limbs. </p><p>“There’s too many <i>doors in here,”</i> Stiles repeats. The words come out more cooked this time, but a layer of slurred haze remains like he’s talking around some other phrase that’s trying to emerge. </p><p>It’s then that Isaac materializes from the column of the hall, and Derek tries not to fixate on how he hadn’t heard or seen him until he speaks.</p><p>“He tried mine a minute ago,” Isaac is saying, his voice heavy with interrupted sleep, but there’s a root of concern embedded in it too. Then, to Stiles, “what are you trying to do?” </p><p>Stiles starts to answer with an uneven huff and his outstretched arm swats his palm against the handle of the door in an attempt to either steady himself or pry it open. </p><p>A light seems to switch on somewhere in Derek’s brain then, and he can see the uncomfortable pressure that’s folding Stiles’ posture, the tight bend of one leg and the rigid hold of the other. It makes Derek’s mind fog up, clouding over and rolling out, and he knows what Stiles is trying to say before he says it, and finds himself crowding Isaac out of the way behind him. </p><p>
  <i>“Bathroom,”<i> Stiles mutters then. It’s almost a question, almost a plea and Derek is already pulling him into the hall. </i></i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“It’s this way.” </i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“Dunno how I got - ” Stiles groans as they round the corner and Derek eases him through the threshold of the bathroom. “So turned around. Is like...” Stiles stumbles again, falling into the anchor of Derek’s hold then pulling himself back again. <i>“Spinning,”</i> he finishes. </i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“It’s the fever,” Derek says, feeling the words as if they’re gritting out from between clenched teeth. The smell of sickness is dark and harbouring, and the confusion glossing against the whites of Stiles’ eyes is unfamiliar. The shadow in Derek’s mind won’t let go of the unbalanced sway in his movements, categorizing the slowed down spark of cognition as something dangerous and unknown, but another part won’t let go for other reasons. Fangs aim at the straggler, for the limp at the back of the herd.</i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“Fever,” Stiles says back, laying a shaking hand on the flat top of the sink counter. “Yeah, yeah maybe.”  Derek is backing out of the room then, one hand on the doorknob, ready to pull it closed behind him. </i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i>“Don’t shower until you’re feeling steadier,” Derek adds. He’s about to say some throwaway line about not wanting to find him with his head split open when Stiles interrupts his thoughts with a sharp and stuttering inhale. 
</i></i></p><p>
  <i>
    <i></i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i></i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  The sound hits like some alarm bell has gone off inside Stiles’ mind at the mention of the shower and Derek looks back in time to see him whipping his head back around to latch onto the sight of Derek standing immobile in the doorway. 
</p><p>
There’s a hollow pocket of silence in the air between them then as Stiles peels his eyes away from Derek, tracking to the empty shower stall and then flicking back to Derek again. There’s something horrified and contemplative building in his expression, as if he’s trying to piece together shards of dream and memory. 
</p><p>
&gt;Derek can’t face the stricken look on his face, can’t process what Stiles is trying to process with his mind on fire and he backs out instead, leaving the door ajar and walking himself back into the core of the loft. 
</p><p> </p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸</p>
</div><p> </p><p>Derek dreams of Stiles strung up, wrists together and held above his head. In the dream Stiles is calling out to him, his voice is a blend of all the ways he’s said his name before. It’s burning through his skull, imploring, brashly frightening, that bright outcry that had wrapped around the trees.</p><p>There’s no smell of pine or crisp air amid the forest. Only sweat and pheromones poisoned with fever, like sex left to rot. </p><p> </p><p>The scent doesn’t vanish when the dream does. Instead it clings just as imploringly and Derek rises. His movements are dreamlike too, moving through the open space of the loft as he chases the scent. It’s sour and dousing and he finds it painting Stiles’ skin like a thick varnish. </p><p>The dip of skin above his lips, his eyelids and temples all shining with sweat, and when Derek peels the blanket away from him he finds the rest of his body shining too. The collar of his shirt is soaked through, fevered sweat sticking him to the sheets beneath and plastering hair to his forehead with dotting beads. </p><p>Stiles stirs when Derek reaches out and touches his palm to his arm. He groans like the slight touch is paining him even as Derek pulls it from him instead. He’s startled by how hot the skin feels.</p><p>“Stiles,” Derek calls softly, and behind closed lids Stiles’ eyes shutter back and forth, somewhere distant chasing motion. The smell of sweat and sickness is pungent so close up, like sugar boiled and burnt. Derek reaches in, brushes the pad of his thumb across the sheen at Stiles’ forehead and now he wakes, abrupt and gasping. </p><p>“Sorry,” Derek says, but Stiles doesn’t seem to hear him, struggling to buck off from the bed. There’s a wild and gauzy case around his eyes and before Derek can speak again he’s sliding halfway off the mattress, trying to scour his balance on the floor. </p><p>“Easy,” Derek says, carefully placing a hand on each side of Stiles’ waist, steadying him though his pulse is stuttering out at a quick tempo, his eyes still lost. </p><p>“Derek?” Stiles asks, voice distant like it’s still cast out in a dream, and he sways, grabbing onto the front of Derek’s shirt with uncoordinated fingers.</p><p>“Yeah,” Derek says, taking a step backwards with Stiles’ weight balanced against his chest. “Come on.” </p><p> </p><p>He leads them into the bathroom, keeping the lights off and letting his eyes drink in the burning heat of Stiles’ body. </p><p>As hot as he’s running Stiles still shivers when Derek props him against the counter and peels the sweat drenched shirt off his body. Burning hot and almost boneless when Derek reaches for him again, lifting him off the ground to deposit on the floor of the shower. </p><p>Stiles moves towards him then, trying to lock a hand around Derek’s arm like he’s trying to hold him in place. His fingers curl around the bend of Derek’s arm. It’s the most dexterity he’s displayed since the injury, and Derek gently peels it away from his skin, moving in to sit on the floor beside him, and there’s a dotted gap of silence before Stiles is twisting away from the faucet, his legs scuffing overtop of Derek’s lap. Derek reaches forwards then, dials the shower on. </p><p>The spray comes out cold and sudden, the stream mottling the exposed skin of Stiles’ back and he reacts with a shuddering whine that suffocates in the dampening fabric at Derek’s chest.</p><p>He’s too long, with too many limbs to fit comfortably across Derek’s lap though he seems to try, contorting his body away from the water, trying through the delirium to make himself smaller.</p><p>“Hurts,” Stiles says, more of a wet slur against Derek’s shirt than a real word. Derek’s only response is to slide a hand up his back, settle on the nape of his neck. His veins sigh open, hungry for the aching wave that crashes into them. With his other hand he reaches up and combs his fingers through the stringy knots in Stiles’ hair.</p><p>The water runs warm but Stiles keeps shivering, pressing the folded knot of his body into Derek’s hold.  </p><p> </p><p>All Derek does is hold him and wait. As the night runs warm too, the hours blend by in a sheltered haze. The shivering tapers off, turning into tired breathing, then the sagging weight of shallow sleep, and Derek shuts the water off but doesn’t rouse Stiles or move from the floor of the stall. </p><p> </p><p>Derek can sense the moment the fever breaks. It’s a strange white dispersing, like clouds parting, something fresh unearthing from the sour stain. The hold of Stiles’ body next to his isn’t caving and twisted anymore but slumped with a defeatist fatigue. </p><p>It’s tortuous to move, to labour through drying off and leaving the dark room and its walls wet with vapour. </p><p>The spell evaporates with the vapour, and the loft feels like a cavern again. Too vast, too hollow. </p><p> </p><p>Stiles dresses stiffly into Derek’s clothes, his eyes moving in a nervous flick when a car outside turns a corner and casts its headlights into the mosaic of windows. </p><p> </p><p>“You need rest,” Derek says, but Stiles is pulling away from the soft pressure of Derek’s arm steadying his frame. </p><p>There’s a struggle housed in Derek with the version of Stiles that unearthed itself from the shower. A struggle of a writhing urge, a fevered idea to wrestle him down if he has to, to press sleep into his frame and hold it there. <i>Together,</i> his mind supplies nonsensically, and he’s reaching for Stiles’ hand, sinking his fingers around it as if he could force healing into him from his own veins. Pain trickles into Derek’s touch, suggesting with a silence that hurts his mind that the process only works backwards. That he could only do the taking, had nothing else to offer, and his mind projects a familiar mantra - <i>there’s no safety here. No security.</i></p><p>Stiles is pulling away from him again, making a small noise that’s conflicted and hurt. The wolf-shape is desperately holding onto the shape and weight of Isaac’s breathing in the cave of the room at the end of the hall. The sound of it is den-shaped in his head, and comfort and control are begging to be curled around it, to wrap up and defend and Stiles’ voice is breaking, harsh and lilted as he wrestles with the strain of constricted breaths, tired and frayed. </p><p>“Can you take me home?”</p><p> </p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸</p>
</div><p> </p><p>The car ride is silent until the end.</p><p>“I’m sorry,” Stiles says as Derek pulls onto his street. “About everything, I’m sorry I’m such a - ”</p><p>“It’s fine,” Derek says. He can hear how clipped and grating his voice is in his ears, but the brunt uncaring sting of it covers the sound of Stiles’ pulse, however temporarily. The uneasy beat of it has been pounding in his ears for the duration of the drive. Derek wants to reiterate, wants to grip Stiles and insist that <i>it is fine,</i> but Stiles is talking again, drowning out his thoughts. </p><p>“It’s not <i>fine,”</i> Stiles says, a rushing flame upsetting his voice. “I don’t know if you’re just trying to placate me or you’re so disgusted you don’t want to think about it, but it’s not <i>fine.”</i> </p><p>“A lot has happened the past few days,” Derek says, so desperate to drop it, to bury it, leave it unmarked. He’s pulling up to Stiles’ house, his thoughts caught in a loop of <i>I wasn’t disgusted. I was the furthest thing from disgusted,</i> and he’s biting his tongue, gripping the steering wheel in a death lock to stay silent.  </p><p>“That was my first time,” Stiles says in a sudden breath of bitterness and courage. “And it shouldn’t have been like that.” </p><p>Derek’s hands still on the wheel and he struggles to breathe around the information that Stiles has just offered up. It shouldn’t be a surprise and it isn’t really, but it still hits like a low punch to the guts. </p><p>“If I could take it back, I would,” Derek says. It’s the wrong thing to say. In the passenger seat Stiles’ eyes are wet and shining with a wounded light that’s untouched by fever and metal wires.</p><p> </p><p>Outside of the house now the porch light surges on and a figure emerges from inside. Stiles is struggling with the latch on the seatbelt and Derek unclasps it, leans over and unlocks the door too. </p><p>Stiles is staring through the windshield at nothing and Derek hesitates, looking past him through the open door to the porch. Rain is collecting in the potted plants that line the stairs, and saturating a large delivered package partially blocking the front door. </p><p>The Sheriff stares back at the car, arms folded across his chest but he unfolds them now, gesturing from the box to the car to Stiles directly as if to say <i>explain this, what’s going on?</i></p><p>There’s a nauseous wave of heavy guilt picking up in Derek's stomach as Stiles slides from the upholstery to stand unsteadily on the pavement. Derek exits the car too, sidling over to the passenger’s side to steady Stiles’ stance. </p><p>Stiles shies away from him, and Derek can feel that glinting flame in the dark pitch of Scott’s eyes drilling and demanding that he <i>look after him.</i> It’s followed by the roots of failure ensnaring Derek’s limbs, dragging him back to the dirt. The shape deforming the breadth of Stiles’ shoulders is just shame. Discomfort is molding the hold of his skeleton, twisting him away from Derek’s grip. </p><p>The Sheriff is still staring. The practiced spotlight search of steel blue eyes is catching details as Stiles slinks up to the house. The tail end of fevered flush on Stiles’ face, the still-fading bruising on his arms, and Derek is backing away before they can discern any more. </p><p> </p><p>There’s not enough time to flee the scene before the look on the porch is pinned on him, wicked and accusing. The reflection of himself that Derek can see swimming in that blue is apt; cruel and wild, alone on the pavement.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I appreciate everyone who's been subscribing and dropping kudos!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. To The Minimal Great Hidden</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>heads up for another violent/gory scene. smut/kink warning.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Derek tries to sleep away the rest of the day, and almost manages. But as evening creeps in his thoughts stretch and brace, begin running too fast. They end up pitching hot and cold like the straggling scent of fever in the loft belongs to him. </p><p>He rises from his rest stiff and dissatisfied, with fading familiar voices clinging inside his head reminding him <i>you shouldn’t be an alpha.</i></p><p>The sanctuary of sleep abandons him fully with a thought that’s familiar too, sticky, glueing itself to his consciousness - <i>they’re dead and it’s my fault.</i> The thought of it is a weeping puncture in his mind, distorting until it’s just <i>she’s dead and it’s my fault,</i> but it comes out set in Boyd’s voice, in words he’d said to Derek, a confession that wasn’t left any time for redemption. </p><p>It falls in pieces in his skull, burrowing bits of bone that dig in alongside so many others. Wounds that ooze themselves empty but never really heal. It smells like smoke and human nature, turning into a runny stew of faces that materialize and melt inside his mind. <i>Paige, Kate, Erica, Boyd.</i> </p><p>New to the mix is the injured flinch, the lost and frightened look on Stiles’ face as Derek hauled him out of sleep. Then the desperate clutch of Scott’s hands around Allison’s body, trying to will power back into it. </p><p>It’s a cruel parade of everyone he couldn’t look after, everyone whose involvement was stitched into the knotted hold of his shoulders, and the decision to leave the loft and go out alone doesn’t feel like it belongs to him at all. </p><p> </p><p>Even as Derek aims himself into this choice he can feel himself being cast out further until some part of his mind begins to detach, to separate and float off, and the notion of crawling back to bed, or underground, doesn’t sound quite so impossible. It feels like cowardice though, a deeper root than the guilt that chars through his mind, and he extends one last desperate claw for a tether.</p><p>It's a stemming rage that answers the call. </p><p>It’s fiery, wild and bright. It paints the inside of his skull like smoke-stained walls, darkens and sharpens until he’s back inside his body. His fingers end with claws, his focus urging him to stand tall, to run, not away from something but towards a fight. </p><p>There’s nothing inside to fight except his own thoughts, but in the centre of his skull Derek can feel the presence of the vargulf, the shadowed skulk of the enemy. That heavy scent polluting the trails in the woods, tantalizingly and alone. </p><p>The breath that Derek drags into his lungs is deep and grounding and it stings in with a tainted edge, but it fills him. Fills him like fangs are filling his mouth, like the wall of muscle is filling out the shape of his shoulders. </p><p>That hollow mantra of <i>they’re dead and it’s my fault</i> transforms with him, consumed by a sprawling red and it becomes <i>this thing to going to be dead and it’s going to be my fault.</i>     </p><p> </p><p>He thinks briefly and distantly about alerting Isaac. Thinks even more far off about Scott, about Argent even - surely wracked and distraught, a cocktail suited for vengeance, but Derek stamps out these ideas before they really form. It’s a category of his mind - <i>allies, safety in numbers, strength with pack</i> - that switches off with practiced ease, devoured by the list of names of those who weren’t safe enough. </p><p>That list of names - the allies and the dead - go up in smoke. It stings his eyes before the plumes vanish.</p><p> </p><p>A chime goes off nearby and Derek’s phone blinks up at him. There’s a text from Stiles that’s brimming with something that feels as direct as a confrontation, sending him into a spiral of apprehension.</p><p><i><b>Been thinking things over. Can we talk?</b></i> </p><p>It’s an apprehension that sits low and burning in his abdomen, but words don’t agree to work with the pressure of fangs inside his mouth, so Derek thumbs his phone to silent and pockets it instead. </p><p> </p><p>He doesn’t risk waking Isaac with the heavy sound of the loft door, and slips through a window to take the fire escape in its place. On the pavement he forgoes his car too, pinning his senses on that murky smell he knows lives in the heart of the preserve and he takes off running.</p><p><br/>
</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸</p>
</div><br/><p>Outside the pouring rain is putting a damper on every scent that isn’t the spongy earthiness of worms and soil.</p><p>While it should be harder to track the scent, the invisible trail of the vargulf is there like it’s been poured down over the damp. It feels an awful lot like he’s being bated, and the suspicion wrings his mind as he wonders if it was possible to amplify scent as well as hide it. </p><p>There’s nothing hidden about the creature in the woods. </p><p> </p><p>The rain is coming down hard and heavy, and Derek is drenched to the bone by the time he’s sunk deep inside the preserve, the heavy scent of the vargulf swimming through the downpour to sour through his lungs. </p><p> </p><p>Derek chases the scent like a dog chasing cars, running through the trails and fallen leaves, eyes red and locked forwards. There’s no sound or sign of birds or animals as the rain pounds down, the steady clatter of falling water echoing with a tidal force through the silence of the trees. </p><p>The scent is on top of him now, uncovered and thick, and when Derek crosses from the beaten path into a small clearing beside the riverbank, he finds it. </p><p> </p><p>What he sees between the sheets of rain and the gnarled trunks of trees is something human-shaped. </p><p>The shaft of Allison’s arrows are still buried in the meat of its shoulder. Derek counts three as he stays hidden in the shadows of the surrounding trees, circling for a way in. The vargulf has made no attempts to pull the pointed heads out, and now it shows no sign that it notices their presence at all - or Derek’s presence for that matter, even as he stalks it through the woods. </p><p>The vargulf’s head is tipped back, face open to the sky and it’s eyes are filled and overflowing with the rain. </p><p>Its hands are moving by its side like it’s treading water instead of standing amid it, and Derek moves in through the clearing with no defences. In his mind he can feel the forest fade out, the space around him becoming a vacuum of emptiness, void of everything that isn’t the blistering burn of his eyes through the rain and the bare and bending shape of the vargulf.</p><p> </p><p>“Can’t you hear it?” The man-shaped thing asks then. Derek doesn’t slow, just carries on his circling, looking for an opening, a hollow of flesh to close his teeth around. He doesn’t answer the strange, raw voice. All Derek hears is the rain, the solitary lug of his own heart.</p><p>The vargulf turns, as if surprised by Derek’s silence. It moves when Derek moves, but not to block or counter his approach. It’s swaying on its feet as if to a rhythm, like the forest is playing a song of madness and it’s playing back - an under the skin symphony, the screaming of its organs.  </p><p>Derek can see those organs beneath the sallow sag and tug of straining skin. Ripples and bulges break against the surface level of tissue, like the shift is running through its body even as it plays human.</p><p>“It’s there,” the vargulf says, inviting. “It’s waiting - ” the tendons of its neck tug then, and water floods out from those empty-seeing eyes as it turns to track where Derek is still circling. “It’s waiting for you to <i>listen.”</i> This last word is a slugging hiss, like the rain has been spilling down its throat as well. Through the sound of it Derek is thinking <i>if I can get in before it changes, if I can kill it while it’s soft...</i> </p><p>“Every blood vessel is a messenger from god,” the vargulf says, some thick distance in its eyes as it watches ambivalently as Derek closes in on it from a diagonal. “Each one carrying a divine word.”</p><p>“You think god is telling you to do this?” Derek asks through his teeth. He can still so clearly see the delight of compulsion as its snout tore through Scott, pointed at a dying human on the forest floor. </p><p>“I am a god,” the vargulf says. It’s more of a sigh than any real structured words, and Derek is close enough to feel the heat surrounding its skin, a burning aura, the skin itself seeming to move on its own over its bones.</p><p>“I see things... I know things. I see the paths of your dreams,” it says, its voice coasting, wistful, but as Derek sinks his claws out, steps closer, that voice hardens suddenly like blackened carbon. “I know what you dream of. It all plays behind my eyes.” </p><p>It’s madness, infection burning hot and liquid through a festering mind, but for one flashing moment Derek sees it like a tower of truth. That ocean of movement inside its eyes becomes impossible layers of sight, images and symbols quivering with energy, bulging, ready to burst.</p><p>Then the movement lifts like some kind of cruel clarity has overcome the man the creature used to be, and just as clearly, Derek can see the obsession that drove him over the edge. </p><p>“So much power on your own,” it says. It’s a gush, an embolism of words. Then, accusing, enamoured - “you feel it too - you feel it too.” </p><p>It rushes forwards then, closing that last sprig of distance. Just as rushed it cuts off Derek’s retreating spring by sticking clamouring hands to the front of his shirt. It’s too fast after those trance-like, swaying movements, and all Derek can do is clap his own hands overtop the grip that’s holding them together. </p><p>“Give in to it,” the vargulf says, a sigh in Derek’s face that tastes like mildew and fresh meat. “Become a god. No need for packs, no longer a slave to the moon, to one physical body.” Its fingers are latched impossibly tight, and even with the crushing grip of his own claws on top, Derek can’t budge them.</p><p>“That’s what this is?” Derek spits, trying to angle himself at an edge, his body away from the thing, but the hands hold tight, those bottomless and empty eyes mere inches from his own. “Freedom?” </p><p>“You feel it too,” the man says, and then it’s not a man anymore. </p><p><i>“You feel it too,”</i> but now the words are garbled, spat bloody and ragged with the caps of human teeth out down the front of Derek’s shirt. </p><p><i>“You...feel it,”</i> now a rough snarl, regurgitated sounds choked up in the shape of words, and now those eyes are exploding with a yellowed <i>pop,</i> turning animal and jaundiced, lined with pink and trailing pus as its face elongates, the human face splitting, shedding to make way for the long snout.</p><p> </p><p>There’s a lingering moment of stillness then, Derek pinned in place by monstrous hands, staring into the pits of madness, of eclipsing power, a whirlpool of diseased strength. Then the moment breaks and its jaws are closing over Derek’s throat, the sound of its heartbeat a peaking scream beneath its skin and it’s bearing down, flattening on him like that shedding skin wants to enclose overtop, encase him, morph him into that same insanity. </p><p>Too deep to register as pain, the air crushes out as his windpipe caves under the strength of it - strength stolen from the moon, and with this thought Derek can feel it all. </p><p>The crushing weight of the moon being forced down his throat, the pull of the tides in the pull of its teeth out of his flesh, that intoxicating power of the full moon punching through his body, drowning him with it, only now it’s his own blood that he’s drowning in. </p><p>With a staggering wrench Derek is hauling backwards as the vargulf drops him from its jaws. Torn free, but torn apart too and Derek’s legs give out beneath him, his spine folding him to the ground. He can feel the tissue of his throat stretching in a valiant effort to seal back up but blood is surging out valiantly too, called back to the earth, drunk up with stringing silence.</p><p>He tries to get up, but a heavy weightlessness is draping over his limbs, and the ground is wet and yielding to him, the soil puckered from the heavy rain, and it’s falling into his eyes now, filling them, washing him clean. He thinks he can feel hands - pale and gaunt - reaching up through the soil, touching him, welcoming him.   </p><p>Through the rain the sky is going dark. The forest going dark. </p><p>Before it fades to black entirely that inky smear of fur tracks back into the spotted edge of Derek’s vision. He can hear the sound of its heart, so fast and clattering, and great gulps of air being drawn into pounding lungs. </p><p>There’s another sound too, further off and charging. It’s roaring like the sea, a storm, but it’s no natural thing, and as Derek feels the wet soak of blood and rain against his skin against the soil, he imagines it might be death coming for him.  </p><p>The vargulf is circling back to him now. He can feel the sink of its claws into the ground in dark vibrations as it runs back in - still carrying that dreamlike, rocking motion in its gait. All the time in the world, in tune with the rhythm of a mind on fire. </p><p>The sea keeps roaring in Derek’s eyes, distant and vast, but it’s changing as it crashes forwards. It’s becoming something that sounds like metal and motion, and Derek can feel the vargulf coming closer. But louder in his head, he can feel the call to close his eyes, and can’t feel the strength to fight it. </p><p>It’s the second before he gives into the call that the air erupts into a shining explosion that riots glitter and glare into Derek’s vision. The light is popping through his eyes, demanding they run red. It turns the dark curtain falling across the forest into a neon-bright landscape, turns the wall of rain into a hellscape, and Derek can see and hear everything in such fine detail that for a moment his mind can’t process any of it separately, but in all one blurring ruin of sensation. </p><p>The strangled noise of something collides with the colossal form of the vargulf and Derek can smell something burning, the hot-shock of blood and rubber and the air is nothing but rain and that exploding shimmer, sharp and white. </p><p>But then the air seems to part and Derek can hear screaming too. </p><p>It’s not the raw and roping gnash of cords the vargulf had been speaking in. It’s something human, high and rich with terror, the sound sharp and riddled with breaks and Derek’s mind lights up like an inferno when the screaming shifts from a cry into his name.</p><p><i>“Derek, get up! Derek, Derek! DEREK GET UP, </i>GET UP...” And then the screaming stops - or maybe it does continue, but the sound is eaten by dozens and dozens of teeth, metal and roaring.</p><p> </p><p>In the swell of his mind Derek puts pieces of it together, wrong and rioting to make sense. He’s bleeding out, clotting and pulling together at the same time, and something is roaring, someone calling his name. Amid the headrush of it all, the screaming and the shimmer, Derek can imagine there’s another alpha roaring and screaming his name, the words a command he’s helpless to obey and he’s dragging himself to his feet with a strength that had just a moment ago felt so far away from his body. </p><p>A jet of thick blood, dark and horrible, paints his ascension as he stands and stumbles forward. It’s not his blood - it carries that dark and musky scent of the vargulf, dark fur singed with crazed heat. </p><p>Staggering but standing up Derek can see it all with the red ring of his eyes, the night suddenly moving in slow motion, time bending around the gashed open line of his throat sealing shut, his breath returning to him. </p><p>The metal, the teeth, the drawn out scream of his name, death charging in with the roar of an angered ocean, it’s all there in front of him. </p><p> </p><p>The vargulf has a leg torn off and the razored line of Derek’s vision finds it tangled between the grill and the front tire of Stiles’ Jeep. </p><p>The windshield has exploded and the shine and glimmer in the air is crushed glass, sticking like dew to the vargulf’s fur, stuffed into beading holes throughout its body, unable to heal around the pieces. </p><p>That commanding roar that punctuated Stiles’ scream for him to <i>GET UP</i> is still roaring, all terror and teeth, but the teeth are made of steel, whirring and grinding, a chainsaw wielded with shake and horror in Stiles’ hands. The nose of it is buried deep in  the shoulder of the vargulf, trapped between layers of meat and bone. The machine is making starved and choking sounds as it leaps with its own life and urges, eager to chew through more of the vargulf’s tissue. </p><p>There’s a moat in the vargulf’s body - the thick gristle and steak connecting its neck to its body - and Derek can already see the first shallow gouges from the chainsaw trying to zip back together. </p><p>Derek doesn’t give it the time to seal off. He’s punching his body forwards, reaching out. He scoops his claws into that fraying flesh, curves his arms and he pulls. </p><p>The vargulf’s head comes with him, a smacking, searing ruin of thick skin peeling back like latex and its body hits the ground with a wet collapse.</p><p><br/>
</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸</p>
</div><br/><p>“Holy shit,” Stiles says in a frantic voice. His hands are shaking violently as he kills the engine and drops the chainsaw to the ground. The chain rattles brightly as it falls as if the machine is preening, chattering excitedly having fed on so much gore.</p><p> </p><p>Beside the tool Derek feels similarly, suddenly engorged with a bright energy, his system alive and empowered with such a drastic switch that even as he moves with muscles swelling with strength he feels almost lightheaded. Through the swell, he suspects that he’s absorbed some of the power, whatever was left of that alpha spark inside the monster. </p><p>There’s a wet noise from his side then, and Derek snaps out of the fog that’s pacing his vision in time to see Stiles double over, retching onto the ground. </p><p>Derek goes to him, sighing with a blood-tinged exasperated affection and lays a steadying palm on Stiles’ back - the blood on his hands meets the rain-soaked fabric and it flowers out with the contact. </p><p>Stiles groans, the motion a vibration through Derek’s hand as he spits thickly onto the ground and stands. He looks at Derek then, slamming him with an expression that’s wild and young, a solar-flare-bright kind of shine in his eyes that Derek knows and names adrenaline, that near-death gallop of pulse and locked in senses. </p><p>The surge of restored power through Derek’s veins makes a sudden sense to him then, a whispered word inside his mind that won’t be argued with - <i>pack.</i> </p><p> </p><p>“You,” Derek says, feeling the weight of the word hang low and stupid on his tongue and he’s not surprised to feel the tight stitches of the shift still clinging to his face. He drops it with a wet shake, rain and blood and heavy daze flinging off of his form as well. </p><p>“Me,” Stiles says back, and the dazed stupor that Derek banished off has landed on him. Stiles’ eyes stutter in a semi-circle away from Derek then, land on the chainsaw laying at their feet. </p><p>“I did that,” Stiles says a second later. There’s blood and tissue gunked along the mouth of the chainsaw, sunk across his hands as well and streaking up his arms and down his torso. The rain is making fast work of it, and as Derek lets the glow leave his eyes, it’s all running into a uniform black-maroon. </p><p>Looking down at his own body, Derek finds he’s painted to match. He’s sick of seeing red, and he turns, jumps off the sloping embankment. </p><p> </p><p>The water is a shock, hitting him mid-thigh, the temperature hooking straight in for his bones. It’s dark in the shade of the trees and the claiming night, cold and cleansing, and Derek splashes the fight from his skin. </p><p> </p><p>“Come on,” Derek says a moment later as he wades back out from the river. The water bites at him as he leaves it, the skin beneath his clothes going achingly numb, and he knows that on the bank Stiles isn’t faring much better. “Let’s get back before you freeze to death.”</p><p>“Yeah,” Stiles says, taking a step forward and holding his arm out as Derek climbs back up the bank. Derek reaches out once he’s up, taking hold of Stiles’ wrist like an afterthought, grounding them both towards something steady.</p><p>Through the contact Derek feels the fast patter of Stiles’ pulse and he reaches for his pain automatically. </p><p>Adrenaline is what gasps into Derek’s veins instead, and for a moment their pulses align, moving in a mirrored lurch. Derek can feel the aggression and the sizzle from his healing slashes surging into Stiles’ body from his own. It circles through the veins to return home to Derek’s chest.</p><p>The reaction it draws from Stiles is electric, his pupils gasping wider, body tensing and lit up like his muscles have been struck with soft lightning and then it’s gone, just as flashing, just as bright. </p><p>What remains in the cold diagonal of rain, their bodies breathing in the woods. </p><p> </p><p>In front of him Derek can hear Stiles‘ teeth chattering, the shadows of the trees laying dark dimensions across his face, and there’s a distinctly purple shade beginning to spread across his lips. His clothes are soaked, heavy and plastered to his body, and Derek can feel his own shoulders bristling, trying to dispel the chill from himself.   </p><p>“Let’s get out of here,” Derek says, reaching out to rake his hands down the shape of Stiles’ shoulders. A coat of water scrapes off with his fingers, and Stiles nods, watching Derek move past him towards the Jeep. </p><p>The front grill is twisted, the hood rumpled and windshield demolished but the body of it somehow seems structurally sound. Derek is a few feet away from the passenger door when he notices the lack of footsteps following his path.</p><p>“Coming?” Derek calls, turning back halfway to look at where Stiles is still standing in a splayed stance by the edge of the river. </p><p>“Yeah,” Stiles replies quickly through a shiver. “I just - ” he stops, twisting a hip to one side and then twisting back. “Just have to pee first,” he finishes.  </p><p>Derek freezes, feeling another bristle across his shoulders and he stiffens his posture. He hadn’t noticed any of Stiles’ squirming - too tuned in to the carnage, the crazed look in those pus-lined yellow eyes - but in the silence that’s slotting around them now he hones to it. The careful dig of the toes of his shoes into the mud, the stiff press of his hands against his thighs, and it’s as if Derek’s mind lights up, connecting to the frequency he feels dialled in to directly, and the vibration of it pulses low in his gut. </p><p>Stiles is looking at him cautiously, unmoving, and Derek’s head is filling with smoke, sirens and panic alarms and he’s thinking wildly for a moment, <i>what is he waiting for? Permission?</i></p><p>“Go, then,” Derek says in a tone that’s too flat to be level. </p><p>“Yeah,” Stiles says again, and Derek can hear him swallow through the rain, can hear a nervous skip in his heartbeat that feels much too belated to belong to the vargulf, the impact of the car. </p><p>Stiles still doesn’t move, and Derek can feel his own heartbeat clamouring to make up for the silence. It’s syncing up to the faint trails of anxious energy in the air, the telltale jump in Stiles’ leg that’s visible now. </p><p>But Stiles just looks at him for a moment longer. There’s a calculation in his expression, still a little dazed at the edges and an itch in Derek’s fingertips is reminding him of the blood, the torn body on the ground, the electricity that’s soaking through the night. </p><p>It’s all piling up around itself and Derek is about to say something, jar Stiles out of the strange silence, bark his name maybe when Stiles is breaking his gaze, snapping his head to the side and drawing his hands away from the fabric of his jeans. </p><p>Derek can suddenly feel the wolf trying to claw through the skin of his face, to push its snout into the falling darkness of the forest and bare its teeth to the night. He fights it down, shoving violently with the blood-soaked corners of his mind, but as Stiles slightly widens the splay of his legs, eyes cast into the trees, the nervous jump of his heart really scattering now, Derek can feel himself losing to the beast inside him. </p><p>Stiles’ eyes stutter closed as he begins wetting himself. Derek’s eyes lock on to his figure, though the water drenching Stiles’ clothes hides the flow and the faint hiss is only audible to Derek’s hearing underneath the sheets of rain, the swell of the river. Only audible because he’s looking for it, and a hushed and fleeting sigh leaves Stiles’ lips to infiltrate Derek’s senses too. Alongside the sigh he’s struck with the scent of fear, relief, that slamming wave of pheromones and then it’s over as soon as it started. </p><p>Then Stiles is shaking his head to dispel an arcing flicker of rain from his hair and he’s walking back to his jeep with a nonchalance that has to be imposed. Then it’s Derek’s turn to stand frozen in place, the riverbank eroding behind him. </p><p>The nonchalance doesn’t extend to the mangled body of the vargulf, and Stiles slips slightly crossing the slick mess of guts and sinew surrounding it. He catches his balance with a sudden jerk and risks a glance back towards Derek before he’s pulling himself together, getting to the car and he opens the door to the driver’s side. </p><p>“What?” Stiles asks, tone meticulously composed beneath the waves of shivering, and Derek doesn’t answer, just forces himself into action, walks numbly over to the passenger’s side and pulls the door open. </p><p> </p><p>Stiles’ hands are shaking as the engine coughs to life and he’s cranking into reverse, the skin there tinted a flushed pink from the cold. Some hazy thought stirs through Derek’s mind at this - half of an idea to reach out towards the control panel and dial the heater on. He doesn’t, and the thought dissipates like steam, unable to be focused on.</p><p>Derek can’t focus on anything that isn’t wrestling with the wolf, pinning it beneath his skin even as it bares its teeth and shudders in his skull. </p><p> </p><p>The streets are empty, flooding at the edges and Derek can barely breathe inside the car, even as the fresh and biting air slams in through the open windshield as the car surges through the swell. </p><p> </p><p>Derek is out of the car before it completely stops moving, and the wash of headlights paint him unevenly as he crosses the front of the car - one splintered open, the light coming out fractured. </p><p>He doesn’t break for the entrance of his building, stopping instead to look at Stiles through the jagged edges of the windshield. Stiles looks back at him, hands still locked on the wheel, eyes washing him with a gaging line. </p><p>If Derek’s mind was capable of running in a more coherent manner he might dwell on how it was miraculous Stiles hadn’t blinded himself with the shards, another miracle that the truck was still running. None of these thoughts touch him now, what-ifs and theoreticals uninteresting to the wolf, staring with a hunger through the broken windshield. </p><p>The wolf riots against its confines, and the effort to keep from shifting jerks Derek’s head to the side. It’s a short gesture, one blunt tip of his head towards the building door and Stiles is suddenly a flash of motion, yanking open the car door and sliding from the seat onto the pavement. </p><p>He comes to a stop in front of Derek, looking at him with an expression that’s some messy combination of an overwhelmed exhilarated terror and something soft and calculating. On top of these rushes of tangled emotion, Derek gets the feeling he’s purposely keeping his eyes turned away from the crushed front of his car, and Derek by default is less painful to look at. </p><p>All Stiles does is look at him once they’re face to face, the rain still clamouring down around them. His eyes are fixed, dark and bright, so many wordless questions brimming on his face and Derek is grateful for the silence because he doesn’t have the answers. In place of reason Derek pitches his body forwards, snags his hands around Stiles’ waist and herds him into the building. </p><p> </p><p>The loft is pitch dark when they enter and Stiles falters in it when Derek slides the door shut behind them. Derek’s hands locate back to Stiles’ waist then, a gentle guide that pushes him blind into the open space, and Stiles’ steps are short but even.</p><p> </p><p>The steady heartbeat from down the hall tells Derek that Isaac is sleeping. The window he had left through is still open, the fresh and clearing outside air flushing out the scent of fever and replacing it with heavy rain.  </p><p>They hit the hall and Stiles reaches out with a groping hand, finds the light switch and tags it on. </p><p>“Can I shower?” Stiles asks, voice quiet and careful as the bright amber glow consumes the hall. Beneath it Derek’s eyes feel trapped, weighted down and staring and he nods. </p><p>Stiles breaks to move into the hall but pauses, eyes snagging on the baseboards, his profile glinting at Derek. His voice then - even quieter but composed, sharpened almost meticulously, “are you coming?”</p><p>Derek draws to a slow stop. In front of him, Stiles stands at an angle. The rise and fall of his chest is shallow, the flush on his face from the rain and the cold is bright, and his eyes are dark and plunging. The dagger of hard intention is gripped tightly in the line of Stiles’ eyes and Derek can’t look away from it. </p><p>Something in Stiles falters when Derek doesn’t answer - doesn’t move at all, just stands rigid, locked in place. Stiles’ hands curl in at his sides, fingers jumping into a fast pattern. He shifts from one foot to the other like he’s bracing to bolt and the wet scuffing sound of his shoes against the floor shakes Derek out of it. </p><p>“Get in,” Derek says, and Stiles takes a backwards step towards the bathroom. The depth of his eyes still locked on Derek, and as it they’re attached Derek moves with him, helpless to follow Stiles into the room.  </p><p>Once they’re both inside Derek pulls the door closed behind him. With the action he listens to the breath that Stiles lets out - it’s intentional, thready and long like he’s trying to stabilize himself. Lungs empty, Stiles turns around, flattens the line of his posture, and peels off the shirt that’s plastered to his skin from rain. </p><p>The smell of fear-lined sweat breaks into the room then and the wolf wants to sink his teeth into the bare stretch of skin of Stiles’ back. There’s still a shimmer running beneath Stiles’ skin that the less violent part of Derek’s mind can recognize as the spreading rash of goosebumps, and he inches in closer.</p><p>Stiles shivers when Derek’s shadow drapes over his back, though the motion runs deeper than his body trying to dispel the cold. Unsteady hands are struggling with the front clasp of his jeans and he finally gets them undone with a jerky flourish.</p><p>After another steadying breath Stiles seems to gather the courage to look behind him, and when he does his eyes are shining but purposeful, and he clears his throat like he’s ridding it of uncertainty. </p><p>Stiles’ hands are frozen in the motion of shedding his jeans, and when he speaks there’s another shiver distorting the words.</p><p>“You, too?” he asks, and Derek blinks a delay out of his form. </p><p>Trying not to stick to the scent that’s glistening from the open mouth of Stiles’ jeans Derek nods instead, curt and heavy and pulls off the soaking drag of his jeans and then his shirt. He can feel his mind and the seams split with the rush of it before he’s coming forwards. </p><p>Derek slips around the edge of Stiles’ hip with one hand, aligning their bodies. He’s close enough to breathe in the shaking sheen of Stiles’ skin. It’s fresh and fierce, invading his senses. He gets three deep lungfuls of it before Stiles is stepping out of drenched denim and Derek is pivoting him forwards and crowding him into the shower. </p><p>Stiles turns the faucet on, swallowing his gasp when the water hits him. It’s cool but a warming contrast to the shiver of exposed skin that Stiles is wrapped in, and soon he’s wrapped in Derek’s hands too. </p><p>They’re hands that push him back against the wall, and Stiles folds into it willingly, reaching his hands to press to Derek’s chest, his fingers fanning out to walk a quiet tremble to Derek’s shoulders and they pull, encouraging him closer. </p><p>Their faces are a breath apart now, and breathing into it Stiles’ lips are parting open, and he’s speaking softly.</p><p>“Why’d you go alone?” he says, the murmur barely there amid the sound of the shower. </p><p>Derek reaches up to trace his hands along the inner line of Stiles’ wrists in answer. The bruising has faded out into a dark shadow deep beneath the surface, suggesting and reminding the skin there of the wire and the strain. The stitches are gone, revealing new scars that sing bright against pale skin. Through the static that’s still wailing inside his skull Derek doesn’t have any words to offer up to the quiet hold of Stiles’ gaze on him. </p><p>The panic is still running heavily through his eyes, and Derek aims the wolf that’s looking through his own at it now. </p><p>It digs its teeth into that pale panic in the form of Derek’s hands coursing down from Stiles’ shoulders to his hips, and they anchor there. The grip isn’t soft or soothing but Stiles sighs anyway, nestling their bodies in closer. </p><p> </p><p>Stiles’ skin feels cold beneath his body, but with each beat of his heart warmth is returning and Derek flattens in on him, shifting his legs to outline Stiles’ frame and press as much heat back as he can. </p><p>He reaches in between their bodies to cup his palm around the front of Stiles’ crotch, and Stiles makes a small noise in response, moving his hips towards the friction. Derek can smell arousal blotting out from Stiles’ system just before he feels the jump against his hand, and he rubs into the growing shape. It’s an explosion of new senses - electricity again, the concentrated downpour from the shower head hitting between them both, Stiles holding so still aside from that angled push of his hips.</p><p>In his next move Derek is peeling the fabric away from Stiles’ body and he lets out a whoosh of held breath when Derek touches him directly. </p><p>The skin Derek wraps his fingers over is satin-soft, eager and arching and Stiles’ breath runs higher, splitting into a new sound that Derek can feel shattering against his own body.</p><p>In a stuttering afterthought Stiles is slipping his own hand down in an uncoordinated gesture, mirroring Derek’s movements without finesse. </p><p>Derek makes a low sound when Stiles takes hold of him.  </p><p>“Oh, woah, that’s - ” Stiles mutters before a pulsing squeeze from Derek’s fingers is disbanding whatever he was planning on saying, turning it to a breaking sigh. </p><p>With the soft weight of Stiles’ cock in his hand Derek drops his head to Stiles’ shoulder, keeping him pressed into the wall with the point of his hip and upper arm, and Stiles sinks deep into the hold of it. </p><p>From his new position Derek begins lapping his tongue against the skin at the side of Stiles’ neck, casually rutting into the hollow curve of Stiles’ fingers as if the crowding chaos still heavy inside his mind can tolerate something slow paced. </p><p>Derek moves in closer, curling into the damp snare of Stiles’ breath against his skin and the shift in movement has him placing a leg in between Stiles’, bracing his body with the flexing solid weight of his thigh. Derek can feel the powder-light brush of Stiles’ balls against his leg from this new angle, the tightening of Stiles’ fingers around him, the hook of his other hand around his shoulder gripping hard. </p><p>Derek rubs their chests together, circling his hips and the wolf finally stops barking at him as he feels a wave of his scent coating Stiles’ skin through all their points of contact. Another forward roll has his chest brushing against Stiles’ nipples and Derek soaks the front of his throat with an eager tongue, drawing back to breathe out against the wet skin.</p><p>Against the shaking press of his thigh, Derek’s quad bulges as Stiles sinks down on it. Supporting his weight now, Derek can feel Stiles’ balls tighten, the fold of his abdomen pulling tight too and Derek closes his lips around a patch of skin on his neck, sucks it in between his teeth. </p><p>“Oh, god,” Stiles groans above Derek’s mouth, his fingers spasming around Derek’s cock, slipping around the head in a smear then reforming a gripping circle, pumping him in a heavy rhythm. Derek burrows into his neck, feeling a snarling moan demanding to be let out and he doesn’t fight it. The sound comes out lined with teeth delivered straight against the taut cord of Stiles’ throat.</p><p>It narrates the orgasm that ripples through Stiles’ body, sudden and intense. Derek rocks his thigh forward, holding Stiles quaking in place as he comes fast between Derek’s fingers. </p><p>When the gasping tremors stop Derek slowly lowers his leg, slipping out from between Stiles’, and he slumps forward unsteadily.  </p><p>“God, fucking - <i>ugh,”</i> Stiles says with a heavy exhale that turns into a hopeless laugh. He claps a weightless hand to Derek’s shoulder, pats it twice uncomfortably.   </p><p>“Give me a minute, I’ll be good to go again,” he says and Derek tips his head up, abandoning the flushed skin of Stiles’ neck to lock against his mouth instead. </p><p>Stiles makes a startled noise that’s eaten by the open press of Derek’s mouth, drowning down his throat and then he’s kissing back like he’s been starving for it. </p><p>Kissing Stiles feels like that extra boost of power from the dead vargulf and the shock of leaping back from the edge of death have gone straight from the base of Derek’s spine through his skullcap. The energy is devastating, vivid and carnal and as Derek licks into the open gap of Stiles’ mouth blood pounds through his temples, white light exploding behind his eyes. </p><p>Derek’s hands have fallen to grip at Stiles’ hips, and he realizes too late that he’s squeezing tight enough to bruise. The force of letting go so suddenly detaches their mouths, and Stiles is speaking, words wet and weightless.</p><p>“Could we, uh,” Stiles starts, stops to catch his breath. “Could we get out?” At the words Derek is instantly so sick of water, sick of feeling underneath it, and he’s detaching their bodies, trying to ignore the disappointed grumble Stiles makes to guide him backwards out of the shower stall. </p><p>They stumble over the pile of wet clothes on the bathroom floor, and the momentum of Stiles tripping into him sends Derek’s back slamming into the wall in the hall. Stiles soaks an apology into his mouth, his hands grappling against Derek’s waist, pushing their bodies together. In turn, Derek pushes off from the wall, shoving them entwined out from the hall to the open space of the loft. </p><p>Against his hip Stiles’ erection has only flagged halfway down, and Derek might have been impressed if he could form a single coherent thought.</p><p>The rhythm of Stiles’ lips against his mouth is unpracticed, filling in the blanks of inexperience with an eagerness that’s almost frenzied. The taste of it breaking against Derek’s tongue is sweet, molten hot, all desperation and desire rotting through his teeth. </p><p>Derek’s hands are flowing down the line of Stiles’ body and they settle just under the curve of his ass before he’s hefting him up without warning. Stiles makes an undignified squawk that turns into an agreeable moan as Derek turns, carrying him over to the far corner where his bed is placed beside the wall of windows. </p><p>“Holy fuck,” Stiles says when Derek drops him onto the mattress, the edges of his words rasping out, eyes dark as Derek kneels onto the bed beside him. </p><p>“More,” Stiles says readily, moving his hands to Derek’s waist and smoothing out along his lower back like he’s in awe of the exposed skin. “More of that, please.” </p><p>There’s something about the way he’s asking - pleasantly while he pants - that sits like a fever dream beside the fresh image in Derek’s head of Stiles covered in gore with a chainsaw in his hands. </p><p>The ridiculous comparison dissolves the structure in Derek’s mind and he has nothing left inside but compliance. His hands fall back onto Stiles’ body like they’re magnetized, called back to claim the skin. Once it’s beneath his fingers it runs like silk, flushing and quaking under his touch. </p><p>Derek moves until he’s framing Stiles’ body with the open line of his legs, grinding down onto the tense line of Stiles’ thigh beneath him and feeling Stiles’ erection fully fill back up in response. </p><p>The result of both the friction and the squirm of Stiles’ skin beneath him has Derek too lost in the moment and the motion to notice the neutral sound of a door clicking open, or the soft pad of footsteps emerging. </p><p> </p><p>Derek surges up on his haunches until he’s crouched over Stiles like he’s guarding a kill when Isaac comes out from the mouth of the hall. Beneath him Stiles goes statue-still. </p><p>“What’s with the noise?” Isaac’s saying in a voice that’s only just awake. He’s coming into the open space of the loft, still talking. “And is that blood? What’s - ” The words die on his lips as his senses seem to catch up to the rest of him, and he stalls on the floor, eyes taking in the shape of Derek and Stiles and then he’s quickly snapping to face the opposite wall. </p><p>“Vargulf’s dead,” Derek says, his voice a low snarl that tastes like victory and stains the room red. </p><p>“Ah,” Isaac says, then, rather diplomatically, “well then. Enjoy your night.” </p><p>The sound of footsteps falls back until they reach the loft door, the metal sliding open and then shut again as quickly as tact allows. </p><p>From underneath the protective crouch of Derek’s body Stiles delivers him a shell-shocked expression.</p><p>“That,” Stiles says, blinks a dozen times within the same second, “is that an issue?” </p><p>“Might have been an issue if he stayed and watched,” Derek says, nosing in behind Stiles’ ear and curling his tongue around the shell. Stiles’ breath hitches and he flutters a hand down to enclose around Derek’s cock with a firm grip. </p><p>The pressure is good, wet and comfortably tight and Derek is dropping away from that low defensive pose to lay his body down along the shaking line of Stiles’. </p><p>“Fuck, Derek,” Stiles whines, moaning into Derek’s mouth as he realigns their mouths, licking into Stiles’ mouth then drawing back again. </p><p>“I’ve wanted this forever,” Stiles gasps into the space that follows, and his hand on Derek’s cock is falling into a rhythm that he can feel all throughout his spine. </p><p>The breath that Derek lets out is more growl than air, and he closes his mouth around the flushed column of his throat. Stiles gasps again, this time so loud and wanton that Derek finds himself burrowing closer to the source of it, shrugging down into the friction in a move that pushes the flat of his abdomen flush against Stiles.  </p><p>Stiles lets out another moan before he’s throwing his head back against the mattress as his cock pinned between their bodies is pulsing out a second orgasm. </p><p>“Really,” Derek says squarely, pulling back once the aftershocks trickle off.</p><p>“Yeah, I gotta work on that,” Stiles replies with a shattered voice.</p><p>“We really do,” Derek says back after a beat. Stiles shudders into a sag on the mattress, pulling his fingers from the base of Derek’s cock towards the head in a tightly ringed invitation, and Derek falls into it. He lowers his body back overtop of Stiles, thrusting into the warmth of his fingers as Stiles slides his other hand between them, running through the wet smear pooling on his lower belly. </p><p>In the next moment both of Stiles’ hands are on him, slipping in a tight lock around his cock and he inhales, deep and rich into the damp press of Stiles’ neck.</p><p>The only things he can pick up on are a deep vein of satisfaction, exhausted relief, and more faded, embarrassment and that evergreen shape of nerves.</p><p>The curl and grip of Stiles’ hands around him is just slightly stiff, the tendons not quite moving smoothly but the expression on Stiles’ face is blissed, half lidded and open. He slides his hands between their bodies, legs slightly parted open as his body rocks in time with the motion of Derek’s hips. </p><p>It’s too easy to slip into the rhythm, the friction and the heady scent of arousal dripping out of Stiles’ pores, and Derek gives in to the haze of it. He can feel himself losing track of time, of frayed nerves and the tired demand of his body. The rain against the windows moves in one uniform curtain, flowing over the glass and distorting the light beneath. </p><p>When Derek does come it rolls up like a dark wall of cloud cover, consuming and sprawling and the ripple of pulsing muscle drenches Stiles in his scent. </p><p>He pulls himself back once he’s spent, bracing up on his forearms to memorize the sight of Stiles spread out beneath him. The sheets are damp and twisted and Stiles’ expression is glorious and debauched, like someone took a sledgehammer to vehemence. Then the shutter in Derek’s eyes is closing and he’s diving back in, pinning Stiles’ hips to the mattress and licking him clean.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. Now The Night Is Over</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>There’s a weightlessness buzzing through Derek’s skin when the morning comes on. He harbours the feeling, eyes closed against the daylight and the breaths he lets in then sighs out leave him feeling both renewed and freshly healed. </p><p>As consciousness insists that it take over, Derek stretches. The movement brings on a yawn that wracks through his body. The motion makes a point of underlining how perfectly the torn line of his throat has healed over, the skin clear and complete, with no traces left of the vargulf’s teeth and claws. </p><p>Motion and consciousness draw attention to the still-sleeping figure at Derek’s side as well; Stiles, blanketed in the golden glow of morning light. </p><p>The tall panes of glass offer no protection to the warm reach of the sunbeams, and they light up tiny particles in the air, creating a soft symphony that dances through the loft in narrow columns. </p><p>The sunlight comes in greedily, touching and highlighting the bareness of Stiles’ skin, points of which are getting lost amid the waves of bedsheets that drape and crest over his limbs and how they sprawl. </p><p>The sun highlights fine details too, and as Derek rubs the last scraps of heavy sleep from his eyes, he seeks these details out. </p><p> </p><p>Stiles’ arms are still faintly discoloured, bruising and broken capillaries stubbornly holding on beneath the surface of his skin. Lines of scarring from the wire live on the inner sides of his wrists too, impossibly pink, the colour competing with the winding script of blue veins and Derek reaches over to trail a finger over these now, picking up the language of his pulse.    </p><p>As he smoothes the skin between his fingers Stiles lifts from his sleep. His eyes open and brow furrows like either the light or the hour is offending him. His gaze spills over Derek then, backlit by the windows. Stiles blinks at him, then presses his cheek more firmly against the mattress, and the open and blurred wash of morning turns his expression into something so nearly bashful that Derek almost laughs. </p><p>“Morning,” Derek says in place of laughter.</p><p>“You didn’t run off this time,” Stiles says back in a gravelly voice.</p><p>“No,” Derek muses. There’s a sluggish weight to his body that wants nothing to do with running, a weight that might be content to stay in bed all day, lounging and languid, lapping at the patterns the sunlight is creating on Stiles’ skin. </p><p>He nestles in closer then, observing the way Stiles’ eyes grow rounder when their bodies brush, the open drop of his lips. <i>Not going to run off again,</i> Derek thinks, and tries to convey with the curl of his hand over the slight curve of Stiles’ hip. <i>Might just stay here until I sink into the sheets. Until the building turns to rust.</i> </p><p>He’s thinking then, in that subdued way that early mornings hold, of a logbook inside a rusting truck. A profile of a monster running wild through the woods. Alpha and Omega, either a lost pack or no desire for one. </p><p>He can feel the snarl of a snout, the press of skin trying to overlap him, and deeper, internally, Derek can feel the overlap of the vargulf’s profile, extending to him too. Extending like that guttural and rawly scraping voice, urging him to give up the need for packs, to give in to the call of power.  </p><p>But now, spread out on his side on wrinkled sheets, caught up in the greedy glow of morning sunlight, those words feel far away, stitched out of the fabric of delusion and lies. Derek breathes deeply, for as long the moment allows him too. It draws in the scent of Stiles’ skin, his skin as if they’re the same entity, and Derek can feel the truth of it, the strength that comes from closeness. </p><p>It takes a good portion of this borrowed strength to banish the comparison those hunters had drawn, the red string linking the vargulf to himself. </p><p>The banishment turns to reflection then, how easily the hunters had snatched up someone toeing the line of Derek’s pack, leaning against his defences, waiting to be let in. </p><p>Derek lets him in now, tugging his hand onto the dip of Stiles’ lower back and aligning the fronts of their bodies. Stiles moves agreeably, his body a slow swarm of movement. He squirms just as agreeably when both of Derek’s arms slither in to clutch around his body, locking them together. </p><p>Stiles hums out a contented note while Derek breathes in the warm buzz of his skin, daring anyone to try to pry him away from this embrace, neither of them alone in the woods, but wrapped up in arms and daylight.  </p><p>“How’d you find me?” Derek asks suddenly, and Stiles wriggles back an inch against the sheets to look at him. </p><p>“In the woods, with the vargulf,” Derek clarifies. “How’d you know where we were?” Stiles looks at him pensively for a moment, kneading the edge of his bottom lip with his teeth. </p><p>“Put a tracker on your phone,” Stiles says. There’s a gaging quality to his expression, like he’s bracing for Derek to get angry. </p><p>“That’s why you were so mad when I left it,” Derek says back, low and level, and Stiles shrugs in admission. </p><p>“Don’t get it twisted,” Stiles adds. “I put one in everyone else’s too.” </p><p>“Does that make it better?” Derek asks and Stiles snorts, nestling back into the warmth of Derek’s chest. </p><p>“If it were really up to me I’d have you all microchipped.” The words come out muffled and turn into a tired laugh when Derek’s responding growl sends vibrations into his skin.  </p><p>The growl loses any lick of threat when Derek pairs it with petting his fingers down the lithe line of Stiles’ back. Stiles responds instantly, rolling his hips up into the shadow of Derek’s body with an unpracticed and innate reflex and Derek has half a mind to bear down and touch up the coat of his scent that’s been welded onto Stiles’ skin. </p><p> </p><p>This thought is struck down from the side of the bed when Stiles’ phone jumps with a message alert, and he reaches for it with a cracking stretch. </p><p> </p><p>The relaxed warmth leaves his expression immediately as he reads the text, alarm and trepidation taking over in a fast rush.</p><p>“What is it?” Derek says, his body making an instantaneous shift, preparing to jump up, combative and tense. Stiles has locked a hand around his forearm, still staring at his phone. </p><p>“It’s Scott,” Stiles says, voice numbing out around the edges. “He’s still at the hospital. Allison... she’s not - ”</p><p>Derek is on his feet as Stiles’ sentence drops and dies somewhere in the sheets. He’s dressed a minute later, tossing a bundle of clothes in Stiles’ direction and he clamours to match the speed.</p><p> </p><p>“What are you going to do?” Stiles asks once Derek is sliding open the door, shoving his shoes on with a teetering lurch. </p><p>“Whatever I can,” Derek says back. </p><p>“I’ll drive,” Stiles drops, both an offer and a finality, and Derek has no qualms with racing him to the lot outside the building. </p><p> </p><p>The roads are filled with straggles of mid-sized traffic jams from morning commuters but Stiles dodges them, speeding through the outskirts of downtown Beacon Hills and flying through side streets with a practiced ease.</p><p>“If she was turning then she’d be healing too,” Derek mutters mostly to himself and Stiles hooks the jeep around a turn so fast that Derek’s surprised that they don’t tip over.</p><p>“Vargulves can’t turn people,” Stiles supplies, blowing past a stop sign without blinking. “Allegedly,” he adds. “I don’t know how reputable my sources were, but the rest of what I found checked out.”</p><p>“That cosmic bullshit about power being a divine gift?” Derek says and Stiles twists in his seat to deliver Derek a look that’s both condescending and pleasantly amused despite the rushed intensity winding around his aura. </p><p>“No, idiot. That decapitating and or dismembering them effectively kills them.” </p><p>They’re pulling up to the hospital now, Stiles parking with a complete disregard for the painted lines and they’re both hauling out of the car with matching slams. </p><p>“You dismembered and decapitated a vargulf,” Derek says then, the words somehow sinking in more now as they cross the parking lot than when he had witnessed the carnage firsthand. The spray of blood, thick as if it were still trying to clot mid-air. The chainsaw stuffed and jammed with gore, Stiles’ clothes soaked through, the smell of metal and rot on the air. </p><p>“Are you okay?” Derek asks suddenly. “After doing that?” </p><p>Stiles freezes at the hospital entrance, the automatic door shuffling open in front of them.</p><p>“Wh - ” Stiles starts, stops, stares at Derek with an open mouthed gape. “No, not remotely,” he says next, shooting Derek an incredulous <i>what gives</i> gesture before scrambling into the hospital.<br/>
</p><p><br/>
</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>	⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸</p>
</div><br/><p>Inside the hospital room Derek is struck by the two overpowering scents balancing each other out with a lethally weighted spiral. The first one is a distress so profoundly delicate that Derek’s surprised the atmosphere in the room hasn’t turned to glass and shattered.</p><p>The second scent is paler, moving through the air like shallow breathing. The scent that drifts like smoke trails, upwards and intoxicating. It’s unmistakably the healing function giving out, a body shutting down. </p><p>Stiles moves to the bedside and when he lays a hand on Scott’s shoulder Scott turns a fraction of a degree, pressing the edge of his skull into Stiles’ side. </p><p> </p><p>From the edge of the doorway, Derek is struck by how small Allison looks in the hospital bed. She’s covered with gauze-lined bandaging, hollow plastic tubes, and a frailty that she never seemed to possess in his presence, too wrapped up with that spiked guard he knew she wore especially for him. </p><p>“The vargulf’s dead,” Stiles says. It fills the void in place of useless expressions of hope or horror, but the void stays hungry, not sated by the statement of death that doesn’t fit inside the room. </p><p>“She had been researching it. The bestiary - it said there was a cure,” Scott says in a quiet voice. His eyes are trapped on the folds of the blanket covering Allison’s lower half. “It said if you can pull the human back out from the monster.” </p><p>“I couldn’t find anything that explained how to do that,” Stiles offers up. His tone has shifted into something treading low and unsteady. Scott nods a little numbly.</p><p>“It was like whoever wrote the entry didn’t bother to look into it,” Scott says. “Like all we’ve got is a manual written by the ones who are just ready to give up on anyone who’s left the light.” Then Scott is tearing his eyes up from the blanket to land on Derek directly. “I’m just so sick of people getting hurt. There’s all this violence and death and then here was a note saying there was a way to save them, but no one cared.” </p><p>“Allison wanted to save them. Her whole family, the whole line just killing and killing, and...” Scott’s voice fades then, choked up with tears and Derek is struck with how affected he is by it. Not simply Scott crying, but by how it feels so pure and potent, like he’s crying for everyone who hadn’t been saved, everyone who hadn’t been given a chance. When Scott speaks again his voice is almost inaudible, sunk below the waves. </p><p>“We just wanted to help.” </p><p>In the silence that consumes the room then Derek is trapped with wondering if Scott was presented with the chance, would he pull the monster out of himself too.</p><p>Beneath the fluorescent lights Derek can see Scot trapped in the shadow between stages. He can see the boy whose life was stolen, warped and given back. The man he was still turning into. And not just a man, not just a wolf, but something Derek had yet to say out loud, though he could see it. Clearer and clearer each day. </p><p>As clearly as he could see Scott burning his heart out from the inside, ignited and coursing, on fire with the urge to do the right thing. It burns red. </p><p>“You do help,” Derek says. “You will help. More than you know.” When Scott tips his head up to look him in the eye, Derek’s surprised to see they’re still that dark brown, tear streaked and only red rimmed. Then Derek blinks and he can see imposed overtop of Scott’s face the vargulf in the woods. The endless tunnels of its eyes, filling with rain, and he can hear the strain of its voice as it morphed and swam in to kill. Then, echoing too, Stiles’ voice in his head. It comes fevered sour and insisting - <i>I have to tell Scott. I have to tell him. He can’t save everyone.</i>  </p><p>“Just didn’t want anyone else to die if they didn’t have to,” Scott says, and his hands are trying to flatten overtop of Allison’s arm, but the skin is obstructed by bandages and tubing. Then, softer, helplessly, “I don’t want her to die.” </p><p>“She won’t,” Derek says plainly. </p><p>Then he’s peeling back the bandages covering one of Allison’s arms and gently sliding the IV needle out from her. The machines and monitors at the bedside begin lighting up, blinking and beeping, and Derek’s hands are closing over the stitching and skin.</p><p>Scott is speaking in a frenzy of whispered shouts as Derek closes his eyes, his veins swallowing heavy dregs of Allison’s pain. He wonders, bizarre in how mild the thought comes on, if Scott is going to try to grab him, throw him off.</p><p>But trust holds him back, even as he jumps to his feet, asking Derek with a startled demand, <i>what are you doing?!</i> </p><p>Derek doesn’t have time to answer before his hands curling into the feel of Allison’s skin are snapping thoughts into his head. The stitches feel too hot, the skin beneath too cold, and he’s slammed with a series of stilted thoughts that feel like they could belong to her as easily as to him. </p><p>He wonders just for a moment if it’s the pain of her damaged body causing it, from claws and starved delight. Or if some of it could be the pain that people carry beneath the surface too. </p><p>Another staggering cascade of it hits him and Derek can feel himself falling to his knees. His hands stay locked firmly around Allison’s arm, and he doesn’t feel the impact of the floor. He’s cast out somewhere, wondering if the pain that’s sending shockwaves through his body could be the pain that relates to him, through the girl he’s drawing it from. </p><p>The pain of burying her mother, all the pain painted in the shades Kate wore. Then that endless line of family that she hadn’t known, the longer, just as endless list of the ones they had caused to be buried too. It weighs down, Derek knows it, and the pain swarming his system weighs down too. Further and further down, and he can feel his thoughts slipping down with it. </p><p>Slipping further and further down until he can’t pull in any more air from the room, like he’s been cast underwater, the whole room underwater, the whole world. The sensation increases, rising and peaking until Derek can feel it as though he’s drowning in the waves of pain. </p><p>Something is coming to the surface - those last pockets of air from his lungs, maybe. Circular and swimming things, breaking for the top of the water’s edge, the air from his lungs, the energy from his core, his life’s blood, all of it rising, rising as the rest of him keeps sinking down. </p><p>He can see the light above. It dances through his darkened vision like a silver coin catching sunlight. </p><p> </p><p>Something within him struggles, wrestles against letting that last breath out. Something that feels too large for his body - something big and snouted, something man-shaped, dog-shaped, something selfish and hungry, feasting on that cresting core of red power. </p><p>But then he’s thinking of things that don’t feel quite so tethered to him anymore.</p><p>Of how all that power hadn’t been enough to save those lists of names anyway. That golden greed beating in through the morning windows. He’s thinking of guts and gristle, the roar of the ocean, of metal teeth. Of glass bursting in the forest, the air lighting up with shimmering dust. </p><p>It bleeds out as his vision does too, the last blurring, whipping glimpses of the room bleeding out, turning red and he’s thinking of crimson power, of burning rage, how letting go of things and letting people in can feel a lot like letting go of control. </p><p>Then that last struggle bubbles to the surface through all that red. The final fight to hold on that last piece of power, that control - and is it the wolf or the man who’s clinging onto it with their teeth? Derek can feel the resolve slipping, sinking to the very bottom of the sea.</p><p>Then, the last thought that feels like it could ever belong to him is saying, softly, <i>would it be so terrible?</i></p><p>And then he lets the water in. Everything goes dark.<br/>
</p><p><br/>
</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>	⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸⫷⫸</p>
</div><br/><p>Derek wakes up on the floor of the hospital room. The bed is empty, machines all powered off. Someone is there beside him, hidden by the glare of the burning fluorescent lights. There’s a warmth radiating from where his head is resting in their lap and their hands are draped carefully on his shoulders.</p><p>“Hey, you’re not dead,” a voice is saying. It’s a little relieved, a little surprised, and a little rough like the person speaking had been somewhere close to dozing. </p><p>“Stiles,” Derek says curtly, rolling his neck to one side experimentally. It clicks, and he groans before speaking again. “Allison?” </p><p>“Her dad snuck her out,” Stiles says. “Scott’s got his mom forging paperwork to explain why someone on the brink of death just up and left the facility. Speaking of which, think you can make it to the parking lot?” </p><p>“’M not on the brink of death,” Derek says. The words come out as a crushed growl, his throat scraping and dry. </p><p>“Yeah, I just watched you perform a miracle and then stay pretty solidly unconscious for about two hours,” Stiles says. “That constitutes as ‘close to death’ in my books.” Derek rotates his neck to the opposite side before squinting above him, attempting to make out any details that aren’t strips of blaring lighting. </p><p>What he’s finally able to pick out is the cedar and bronze focus of Stiles’ eyes on him, looking strangely patient and not dissimilar to the expression normally waiting on Scott’s face. Derek’s thinking derails again, going off into that stringy far-off place. He’s thinking of Scott’s eyes, dark and human, then the vargulf’s yellowed swirling pits. Stiles’ fevered voice insisting he has to talk to Scott, has to tell him...</p><p> </p><p>“You knew,” Derek says then, startling himself out of his spinning thoughts, and Stiles’ hands are cradling his head. </p><p>“You knew Scott was going to try to save it. You knew that they were going to get hurt.” He’s astounded by it, all at once. Even through the wall of it, his mind on fire, the vargulf’s mind on fire, Stiles had still managed to thread the pieces together, visualize the danger of those both close to and far away from him. It was something both simple and profound, and if Derek had just stopped long enough to listen, paid enough attention, if they had all just sat down long enough to <i>talk -</i></p><p>“Should have listened to you,” he says with a groan, pressing his back into Stiles’ lap to gain some leverage and sit up. </p><p>“Should have stopped trying to be an <i>alpha</i> and thought about asking for help,” Stiles corrects, shuffling back on the tiled floor to push Derek the rest of the way up. </p><p>“I was a terrible alpha,” Derek says then, and Stiles snorts.</p><p>“I don’t have much experience with alpha werewolves, but I’m fairly certain that’s an accurate statement,” Stiles says. </p><p>“You don’t have much experience with anything,” Derek says as pointedly as he can manage in the state he’s in, and Stiles is making an affronted sound. </p><p>“Rude,” Stiles says with a sniff. “Should have left you here on the floor.” </p><p>“Could have,” Derek says, and something in Stiles’ expression softens. </p><p>“Well, next time you risk your life to save one of my friends, maybe I will,” he says. Then he’s clamouring to his feet and offering a hand to Derek, who eyes it dubiously. Stiles rolls his eyes, flapping his extending hand impatiently.<br/>
“Come on, jellylegs. I’m not made of glass.” </p><p>Derek continues eyeing the hand distrustfully, hauling himself first to his knees and then to a heavily unbalanced stance on the floor before reaching out and taking hold of Stiles’ hand. He takes a trial of a step forwards and sways violently, knocking into the wall and Stiles jumps in, ducking his shoulder beneath Derek’s arm to hold him upright.</p><p>Derek sags onto him like a crutch. Stiles’ legs almost buckle as he makes a low sound like all the air has been crushed out of his lungs. Derek suspects it has, but allows himself to be shuffled from the room into a vacant corridor where he splays out an arm to drag along the wall. </p><p> </p><p>Somehow, they make it to the parking lot without incident, and Derek allows himself to be manhandled with a great deal of effort back into the passenger seat of Stiles’ jeep. </p><p> </p><p>“So, what now?” Stiles asks once they pull off from the main road heading downtown. </p><p>“Could you be more specific?” </p><p>“Don’t betas, like,” Stiles flings a hand through the air vaguely, “need an alpha?” </p><p>“Scott’s well on his way,” Derek supplies, just as vaguely. His thoughts are coming back to him with more clarity now, and with them a dull ache all throughout his temples. </p><p>“Scott - my Scott?” Stiles says, shooting Derek an incredulous look while blowing through another stop sign. </p><p>“I think we’re at a place where we can accept that stranger things have happened, don’t you?” Derek says. Stiles lets out an amending laugh that’s a little rocky on the outskirts. It’s riddled with the tension of the past few hours, days, years. </p><p>Derek spends the rest of the ride on the verge of something heavy that’s wearing the disguise of sleep. In it his head is floating, his system recalibrating, resetting back into what should have been an amber coloured neutral, but burns a little blue along the edges. </p><p>He thinks distantly as Stiles drives, how abruptly and unfairly Scott and Stiles had been thrust into this world of danger and merciless decisions. How Allison had been born into it like he had been, but not like he had been. </p><p> </p><p>He’s thinking as Stiles brings them back outside his building and opens the door for him to slide out of without grace, how Stiles didn’t really make demands. Just silent and not so silent requests to be included. Something in his stance, in the fierce hold of his eyes even as they shine on the verge of crying, that kept saying <i>I didn’t ask for this either.</i> And then, softer - <i>so what are we going to do about it?</i> </p><p> </p><p>What they end up doing about it falls so simply into a natural routine that Derek finds himself waking throughout the nights just to bask in the comfortable weight of Stiles sprawled out on the sheets beside him. </p><p> </p><p>Stiles gives Derek plenty of handfuls of space while he studies and flits to and from his college campus, and drapes himself around him when that same need for space evaporates as time passes. </p><p> </p><p>Weeks run by like watercolour gradients. Derek wakes Stiles from uneasy dreams with the heavy drag of his arms around his waist and Stiles chips away at his exterior. Healing does its best to run golden, but that blue always manages to creep in. Some days it washes out like rainclouds. Most of their mornings waste away in bed. </p><p> </p><p>One morning however, just over one month after that hunting truck had first pulled up on them, Stiles gets up uncharacteristically early. </p><p>Half asleep, Derek can hear his path take him into the kitchen where the tap runs for a moment. It’s followed by the sound of water filling a glass, then a faint pause before the process repeats, and repeats again. Then the silence prevails, and Stiles is sliding back into bed beside him.</p><p> </p><p>The next out-of-character move is when Stiles casually folds some distance between their bodies when Derek nestles into him shortly after. Stiles dislodges Derek’s hands from his waist, keeping them from continuing down the new-familiar path that would slot their legs together, and end with hungry kissing and the wet drag of fingertips. </p><p>It’s a wrench in their slow forming routine and Derek tunes in to it immediately, alert and spring-loaded. </p><p>Derek pulls back too, looking at Stiles with a curious and apprehensive stare. Stiles blinks back openly, sidling back in close enough to press his mouth against Derek’s, licking in gently until Derek relaxes again. He allows Derek to touch his hands back along his skin, but he doesn’t escalate it. </p><p> </p><p>It digs at Derek, burrows as they both eventually rise and dress and feel the day begin to unravel. </p><p>It’s gotten well under Derek’s skin once they’re both up - the one thing he’s come to accept as a staple of having Stiles around was that he always escalates things. </p><p> </p><p>Stiles turns down Derek’s passing offer for breakfast and opts for coffee instead. He’s on his second cup when he starts fidgeting in a way that Derek can aptly rule out caffeine as the cause. </p><p>Derek eyes him but doesn’t say anything, feeling the restlessness spread into his own body as Stiles drops to the edge of the couch in the open area, jostling his leg in constant motion. He’s just barely pretending to pay attention to the open textbook on the cushion beside him when Derek finds he can’t think straight sharing a room, and breaks for the door with no real destination in mind. </p><p>Stiles’ voice keeps him from reaching for the handle.</p><p>“Where’re you off to?” he asks, and there’s something in his tone that’s so nearly <i>sly</i> that Derek whips around on his heels. From the couch, Stiles is offering up an earnest and open expression that stalls him again. </p><p>“Nowhere,” Derek says, a little taken aback at both the honesty and how difficult it had been to lift a sufficient fib from the swirling cement of his mind. </p><p>“Don’t want to keep me company?” Stiles asks, lurching to one side to fall into a cross legged seat on the couch. Derek gives him a wary glance, but comes further back into the room. </p><p>“Not if it involves pretending to understand - ” Derek gives the textbook a critical once-over, “- quantum mechanics, seriously?” Stiles quirks an eyebrow at him.</p><p>“Blows regular mechanics clean out of the water,” he says, patting the empty slot of couch beside him invitingly. </p><p>Derek caves and obliges but sits tensely as Stiles shifts fives times in half as many minutes. It’s when Stiles rocks forwards, shifting a balled up fist in between his legs in an impossibly unsubtle motion that Derek finally breaks and moves to get up again. </p><p>“What gives?” Stiles asks, lifting his eyes up from the blocks of text to shoot Derek a put-out look that borderlines on abandonment. </p><p>“You’re being twitchier than usual,” Derek says as unaffected as he can manage, and Stiles’ face breaks into a spreading smile that holds far too much cunning for Derek’s liking.</p><p>“Oh I’m sorry, is my natural state offending you?” Stiles says, dropping one leg onto the floor where it instantly picks up a hammering beat. “Because I could just leave.” In place of leaving, Stiles slams his textbook shut, wincing apologetically when Derek pulls a face at the sudden volume. </p><p>“I could find someplace else to study if I’m really bothering you that much,” Stiles continues, but in a flurry of almost coordinated gestures he’s pitching over to hook a leg over Derek’s lap, inching into a straddle that Derek assumes was a botched attempt at something alluring. The missed mark seems to register to Stiles too, and as something self conscious shadows his features while he sorts his limbs into place, Derek presses in to kiss him. </p><p>Stiles makes a pleased sound against his mouth, grinding into Derek’s lap with his usual eager energy. Derek rocks up into the motion, already hard beneath him and he pins Stiles’ legs to his sides to still the motion that keeps jumping through the muscle, pulling up to kiss him deeper. </p><p>The slight change in posture puts a wall of pressure against Stiles’ abdomen and he gasps suddenly, the sound shooting straight to Derek’s cock as Stiles tries to tighten his legs around Derek’s thighs.</p><p>“Sorry,” Stiles mumbles against his lips, twisting in a writhe that semi-circles his groin across Derek’s. “I’ve had a lot to drink this morning,” he adds with a laugh, pressing back in to lick outline of Derek’s bottom lip, nipping him slightly as he grinds his hips down again. Derek goes rigid beneath him, his hands freezing on top of Stiles’ legs.</p><p>“Well go take care of that,” he says in a stiff voice. </p><p>“Hmm. No,” Stiles says back sweetly before writhing in as close to Derek as he can squeeze and pressing the open drag of his mouth to his jaw. </p><p>“Stiles,” Derek deadpans, moving his hands to Stiles’ waist now to press some leverage between their bodies. </p><p>“Mm, say my name,” Stiles slurs against Derek’s neck absurdly, bucking his hips in a fast stutter before dropping a hand to squeeze his own crotch and cursing under his breath. </p><p><i> “Stiles,”</i> Derek says, firmer this time as he presses more force into his palms, effectively detaching Stiles’ mouth from his neck. </p><p><i>“What,”</i> Stiles snipes back, wriggling in protest against the iron hold on his waist. </p><p>“What’re you doing?” Derek says, feeling the words shape themselves into something harsh and level instead of the frantic panic that formed them in his mind, the wolf clawing at the door it’s locked behind.</p><p>“Kissing you,” Stiles says, feigning innocence then dropping the facade and rutting his erection against the hard line of Derek’s abdomen. “And trying to get off before I piss myself,” he says admittedly. </p><p>Derek stands up abruptly then, the action dislodging Stiles from his lap somewhat roughly. Derek paces towards the wall of windows in an attempt to put some distance between them and wrestle reason back into his own skull. He can feel the door caving, splinters bursting out.</p><p>“Derek,” Stiles says in a warning tone and Derek’s head whips back around to face him. “You’re doing that thing again,” Stiles adds. </p><p>“What thing,” Derek says between gritted teeth, and Stiles sighs dramatically, rounding the couch to cross the room in a tight shuffle.</p><p>“That <i>thing</i> where you run away every time shit gets a little too intense for you to cope with,” Stiles says evenly despite the afflicted hold of his body. Derek can’t look away from it - the narrowly rocking sway that’s invaded his balance, his legs twitching in fast irregular pulses, one hand curled snug against his crotch. </p><p>“What are you getting at?” Derek says, feeling dangerously close to snapping. It doesn’t feel aimed at Stiles particularly - his body feels entirely wound up and honed in on Stiles, itching to get closer, to run his hands along his skin, to feel the pitches and shake of his body, but something that feels decidedly like a wall is holding him in place, stiff and held off.</p><p>“You...you like this, don’t you?” Stiles asks next. There’s a crawling shiver through his tone, tense with tight control, and Derek can’t answer, pinned beneath the high beams of Stiles’ gaze. </p><p>“I’m right. I’m right, aren’t I?” Stiles says, and the breath Derek has been holding is siphoned out of him with the gentle demand that Stiles is drilling him with. </p><p>Derek’s next inhale draws in the scents and emotions emanating from Stiles. There’s tension, arousal, a high flare of embarrassment, but it’s all underlaid with a gritty determination that’s holding Derek captive on the floorboards. </p><p>“What is it? Is it some werewolf side effect? Is it just <i>sexual?”</i> Stiles says the last word like it’s paining him, or else his state is. Derek can’t separate his words from his figure, his legs clamped tight together, his eyes fiercely searching across Derek’s expression. </p><p>“After the vargulf,” Derek says suddenly, neurons firing in his brain, desperate to string a sentence together, anything to distract from what’s playing out in front of him. “You did that on purpose.” In front of him, Stiles flushes slightly, then straightens his posture almost defensively, flattening his palms against his outer thighs. </p><p>“Yeah, I did,” he says. A low pulse of his heart sends another wave of embarrassment out towards Derek who nearly shudders as it crests against his senses. </p><p>“Like I’m doing this on purpose,” Stiles adds, and Derek wants to claw his own skin off, wants to tear out from the room, to rage into the woods and vanish, but the weight of Stiles’ eyes, the pulsating twitch of his left leg now shifting to cross slightly in front of the right all hold him frozen in place. </p><p>“Why?” Derek asks, feeling the way his eyes are changing from trapped to glaring. </p><p>“I don’t know,” Stiles says, laughing something dry and helpless. “Why do you like this?” </p><p>“I don’t - ” Derek starts and Stiles cuts him off sharply, sliding his hand back between his legs while he speaks.</p><p>“You can’t say you don’t while you’re looking at me like that,” he says, the spaces between each word punctuated with an almost fluid breathiness. “Why do you like this?”</p><p>“I don’t <i>know,”</i> Derek rushes back. It’s one harsh exhale, more of an admission than he was prepared for, and he can feel the corners of his vision darkening, the room beginning to blur at the edges, like everything that’s not in front of him is ceasing to exist. </p><p>“O-oh. Okay, that’s a start,” Stiles says, shuddering slightly when Derek takes a faltering step forward. “Is it this part?” Stiles asks next. “Or is it...is it the other part?” </p><p>Unaware of when he made the decision to cross the room Derek finds he’s still stalking towards Stiles like he’s being drawn in, dragged out like the tides. </p><p>“I don’t know,” Derek says again, but it sounds defensive, beating like a lie, and he’s close enough to touch him now. He doesn’t. He stares instead, his eyes unwavering, drinking up the slight tremble that’s alive throughout Stiles’ body. </p><p>“I don’t want to force your process here, but if it’s <i>not</i> the other part, you’ve got about five minutes before that stops being optional and starts being completely unavoidable,” Stiles says in a voice that’s almost bending in how tightly gripped it is with strained control. </p><p> </p><p>For a moment Derek just stares. At the faint pink that’s tinging Stiles’ knuckles where he’s holding himself. The sharp-bright glint adding impossible dimension to his eyes. The creases at the knees of the grey sweats that he’s swearing - Derek notes mutely that they’re his, slightly oversized on Stiles’ frame. He stares until the details all start washing out from his mind along with the last scraps of cohesion, steamrolling his thoughts with a dense fog that smells like pheromones and the slightest hint of humiliation. </p><p> </p><p>“Bed,” Derek says through the fog that’s eroding most areas of his brain. “Bed, now.” </p><p>Stiles obeys without issue, moving to the bed in an almost bow-legged path and he hits the mattress hard. Derek follows without noticing, but he catches every minute detail of Stiles’ body without fail. </p><p>Derek is blindsided by the way Stiles doubles over to scoot back against the bed, the movement indicating that his situation is well-past bordering on painful now, and some small and fractured part of Derek’s mind suggests mentioning something about how that can’t be good for him, and is certainly not advised. This feeble line of thought is promptly devoured by the wolf as Stiles shuffles forwards and kisses him. </p><p>“And you’re <i>still</i> hard,” Derek muses between his teeth when Stiles shudders far back enough to let him palm his own hand between his legs, stroking around where Stiles is gripping himself tightly. </p><p>“Oh, absolutely,” Stiles says with a groan that sounds more pain than pleasure. “You’ve got super strength and super senses, I’ve got the superhuman ability to maintain a hard-on in drastically inopportune states.”</p><p>“That so?” Derek says, humming the words almost conversationally as he drops to his knees and tongues a path against the shake of Stiles’ stomach, and Stiles shudders beneath him.</p><p>“Uh huh,” Stiles says, struggling against the onslaught of Derek’s hands now pushing his shirt further up, raking the blunt tip of a nail against his nipple. “You wouldn’t believe how many times we’ve been head to head with some supernatural nasty and I’m sporting a fear boner,” he says, voice getting tighter in a way that Derek has become well accustomed to.</p><p>“Nothing would surprise me less,” Derek says, mouthing his way to Stiles’ hip, burying his nose in the straggling hair just above his waistband. The sweats are too big for him and it’s all too easy to sink his fingers beneath the elastic. Stiles arches his back, digging his nails into Derek’s scalp. </p><p>“You know Gallic warriors used to charge into battle with erections?” Stiles says then, gasping and pinning his spine back onto the mattress while Derek mouths at him through the cloth. “Fear and adrenaline, maybe some of that bloodlust you’re always going on about...”<br/>
“Starting to feel a bit of that right now,” Derek says, dropping his fangs and growling, deeper in his throat this time, feeling the way the vibrations run like shockwaves through the tense line of Stiles’ body. </p><p>“I distinctly recall you mentioning something about an <i>insatiable desire for human flesh,”</i> Stiles says, breath hitching as he bucks up to shamelessly rub himself along the line of Derek’s jaw.</p><p>“I distinctly recall a similar feeling,” Derek says, shuffling Stiles’ waistband down low enough to curl his tongue into the taste of fresh arousal that’s pooling and ribboning out into the air. </p><p>“Hurry up with that,” Stiles says with a high whine, his hips jerking up towards the touch, blindly seeking friction and Derek complies with a curved palm over the shape of him through his sweats even as he pulls his mouth off to mock him. </p><p><i>“Me</i> hurry up?” he says, petting down into the clothed shape of Stiles’ cock straining desperately to get out. “You - the hair trigger - are telling <i>me</i> to hurry up?” </p><p><i>“Yes Derek,”</i> Stiles says back, the words flying out so fast they blend together. “Hurry up because I’m about to pee my pants.” </p><p>The wiring holding Derek’s remaining thought structure together short circuits then, and he jerks the edge of Stiles’ waistband down with one hand, knuckles pressing in to tease just beneath his balls in a burrowing circle and he sucks the tip of Stiles’ cock into his mouth in one fluid movement. </p><p>Stiles moans loudly, body seizing up in a tight quiver that wracks from his shoulders down to where his toes are curling, calves hooked around the broad stretch of Derek’s back. Derek slides halfway down his cock, hollowing out his cheeks before settling back on the head, his tongue delving hot pressure just under the glans. Stiles comes undone with the next swirl of his tongue, his hips flexing up as he orgasms hard, shuddering back onto the mattress and prying Derek’s mouth off when he keeps up the tortuous intensity of the pressure.  </p><p>As soon as Derek concedes to being pushed off, Stiles shoves a hand between his legs again, gripping himself firmly and inching down the mattress until his feet are back on the floor. </p><p>“Alright, Wolfman,” Stiles says in a voice that’s barely holding together. “Bathroom before I burst, please.” </p><p>Derek doesn’t argue, just pulls Stiles onto his feet and manhandles him into the hall, supporting most of his weight. He doesn’t dwell on how much he enjoys how crushingly polite Stiles gets when he’s pleading, either.</p><p> </p><p>The bathroom light clicks on as Stiles stumbles over the threshold and Derek guides him in, achingly hard in his pants, and when Stiles turns to face him he bucks his hips forwards to outline his appreciation.  </p><p>Derek can feel Stiles pressing back into the flush of his own body. Stiles’ erection is truly flagging now despite the marbled spread of pupil in his eyes, and for a split second Derek contemplates forcing him to his knees, slipping into the wet cove of his mouth, just holding him in place while he loses control.  </p><p>Instead he backs Stiles up against the counter, pressing in to kiss the arch of his neck, the dip of his shoulder, up to his mouth. Stiles kisses back, losing more form and rhythm by the second. When Derek shifts back to his shoulder then down to his collarbone Stiles presses a shaking hand to his chest, pushing him back gently and reaching down with his other hand to tug his waistband down his hips. </p><p>“Okay big guy, I don’t know if you want to watch or dip out, but this has to happen now,” Stiles says, his words so tight, thick with a kissed-wet slur. Derek pulls his mouth off, drawing back as Stiles is aiming towards the sink. </p><p>Derek reaches out then with a featherlight touch, hovers his hands overtop of where Stiles is about to free himself, and then presses his palms down, stopping the motion. In the same movement, he’s turning Stiles back around to face him, and easing his hands to his sides, pressing back in to rut against the friction of Stiles’ clothed thigh.  </p><p><i>“Really?”</i> Stiles says in a broken voice, body first jolting then rocking with the run-off motion of Derek grinding against his leg, and Derek growls into his shoulder. </p><p>“Don’t know,” he says with the low and rocky vibration. </p><p>“Fine, whatever, they’re your clothes,” Stiles says in a strained gasp and Derek smears an open-mouthed kiss along his collarbone. He detaches a second later, peeling himself off from Stiles’ body and taking two steps backwards, drinking in the sight of Stiles left against the countertop.</p><p>His hands stall in the motion of trying to follow Derek’s body and retreat, slamming back against the granite instead, fingers splaying out for a purchase that isn’t really there.</p><p>“Oh fuck, fuck, okay, okay this is - ” Stiles’ voice falls to pieces then, turning into a high note that gets swallowed by a whine as he squeezes his eyes shut and Derek’s gaze is locked so tightly onto his form that the edges of the room begin to blur and distort in his vision.  </p><p> </p><p>The first drop that flowers into the fabric sends Stiles’ spine bolting impossibly upright against the counter, his muscles visibly clamping down like he’s still trying to hold on, wrestling against the concept even when the idea belongs to him. </p><p><i>“Fuck,”</i> Stiles says again, this time a cracking whine crushingly high in his throat, and Derek watches it happen in slow motion - the quick dip of Stiles breathing out a shallow puff of air, the blush consuming territory on his face, the slope of his legs dropping open as he both fights against and gives in to it. </p><p>Stiles makes a soft noise of muted shock as the fabric at his crotch soaks through in a growing patch a second later. The soft grey material bleeds out into a glistening black, spreading along the inseam of his thigh and coursing down his legs in threading rivers.</p><p>Derek has barely gotten a fist around himself before his cock is spasming between his fingers, pulsing empty in long heaving surges and Stiles’ eyes are still closed, his face angling away from where Derek stands in front of him, breathing hard as the currents ripple through his body, both fierce and fading. </p><p> </p><p>“Was that - ” Stiles pauses to let out a breath that shakes its way from his lungs. “Was that okay? Was that what you wanted?” he asks, and his eyes are open again, looking to Derek with an expression that’s been shredded with a sudden vulnerability. </p><p>The look - searching, frantic, almost shy - sends a fresh punch of arousal coasting through Derek’s brain, firing through his nerves and forcing him across the room to grip hold of Stiles’ hips, press his mouth to his neck. </p><p>Here the scents that Stiles is compiled of sing bright, and Derek burrows into them. Chemo signals are calling out against Derek’s tongue and he washes them over, swallows them down. Pleasure is tied in narrow knots around tension and excitement, the rabbit-pulse of arousal intertwined with an embarrassment that flowers and burns off from Stiles’ skin, drenching the air around him like a glowing aura, and Derek wants to drown in it all. </p><p>It’s wrapped up in an acrid sour bite that seems to hold itself separate from the ones affecting Derek, a byproduct that the wolf seems neutrally curious of and not particularly interested in.   </p><p>Derek slots their bodies in closer, fingers smearing his come along the exposed skin at Stiles’ midriff and dragging his chest across Stiles’. Stiles teeters slightly against the pressure, taking a stumbling sidestep to correct his balance and the fabric caught beneath his heels makes a distinct squishing sound against the tiled floor. </p><p>“Ew,” Stiles says in what would be a pointed tone if he weren’t quite so dazed and glassy, and Derek sidles closer, biting down on Stiles’ shoulder and flashing his claws out to shred Stiles’ soaked pants off. </p><p><i>“Animal,”</i> Stiles mumbles, letting himself be pawed across the room into the shower. </p><p> </p><p>That glassy, drifting haze rolls back in to cover Stiles’ disposition when Derek pulls his clothes off and turns on the shower faucet. This time, there’s no comedown from danger, no distance and uncertainty held between them. Instead, Stiles melts into his ministrations, letting his head loll back against Derek’s shoulder, exposing the pale column of his throat and the wolf inside him preens at the sight, deeply sated even as Derek feels himself growing hard again.  </p><p>They stay beneath the fold of the water like that, Stiles floating on his feet while Derek ruts softly against the warmth of his back, soaping him down. </p><p> </p><p>Stiles is flushed and hard again when Derek dials the shower off, swaying somewhere between docile and indolent while Derek pats him dry, pausing to track wet trails with his tongue along bare swatches of skin. </p><p>Derek feels the wolf stretching through his skull, digging suggestions through his body that blur and lope, vacant ideas like <i>bite there, mark here, cover him with your scent,</i> and Derek obliges until Stiles is whining, a petulant tremble carried on long fingers that trail to Derek’s shoulders and knead into the muscle there.  </p><p>The kneading turns into grousing pinches when Derek idles too long raking his tongue between Stiles’ inner thigh and the flushed ring of his hole, ignoring the pink and leaking arch of his cock. The sighing moan that follows sounds an awful lot like <i>get on with it, you depraved dog,</i> and Derek gathers him up, crossing back through the loft to drop him back onto the mattress. </p><p> </p><p>Sprawling warm and damp against the sheets, Stiles squirms his hips lazily when Derek reaches in to wrap his hands around both of them. Stiles’ mouth drops open as they slide against each other, eyes falling shut, this time brought on by more bliss than shame, and Derek would be hard pressed to pit the expressions against each other. </p><p>Derek is dipping down to claim his mouth in a possessive and open kiss when Stiles’ hips are pinning up tight and a second orgasm is spitting weakly into the coil of Derek’s fingers. Derek strokes him through it, his hand painted hot and slippery, adding to his own pleasure even as he delivers Stiles with a judgemental brow. </p><p>Stiles laughs, weightless and conniving. </p><p>“After that little performance you’ve officially lost all privileges to make fun of me,” he says with a light gasp and there’s no backbone to his words, all boneless and fond.   </p><p>Stiles adjusts on the sheets after the last few twitches trail off in Derek’s hand, and he tucks his body slightly to one side, crossing one leg overtop of the other. One arm locks tight around the back of Derek’s neck, tugging him down while his other hand guides his swollen cock in between his thighs.  </p><p>Derek goes where he’s guided without resistance, nosing into Stiles’ neck while fingers ghost into the wet tangles of his hair. </p><p>Stiles’ legs stay clamped hot around him and he gets lost in the friction, finally coming with a steady rolling daze, the head of his cock pressing flat against Stiles’ hole which shudders at the blunt contact. </p><p>Burrowed in the press of Stiles’ body, Derek inhales deeply, dragging in the pure scent of light sweat on fresh skin, contentment glowing warm and golden.  </p><p><i>Could stay here,</i> Derek thinks somewhat deliriously as Stiles sighs and pulls around him, heavy arms spelling out a limp demand to be closer, and Derek complies. </p><p>He doesn’t realize he’s said it out loud until Stiles’ voice drifts out to meet his mouth, saying <i>yeah, you fucking better.</i></p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Fin. Hope you enjoyed my first chaptered TW piece. I appreciate any and all responses. Have a good one ~</p><p>You can find me on Tumblr: https://nacreousgore.tumblr.com</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>